Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credits: Bertrand GUAY / AFP 19:32 p.m., October 29, 2023

The war between Israel and Hamas has revealed in France "complacency" with Islamism, accuses Marine Le Pen this Sunday. The former presidential candidate for the National Rally questioned the fact that AFP did not directly describe the Palestinian Islamist movement as "terrorist".

Marine Le Pen said Sunday that the war between Israel and Hamas had revealed in France "complacency" with Islamism, questioning in particular the fact that AFP does not directly qualify the Palestinian Islamist movement as "terrorist". "In the three weeks we have just lived, there has been a revealing effect of complacency and even sometimes compromises with Islamism of part of the political, journalistic, associative, cultural world," said the leader of the RN deputies in Sunday in politics on France 3.

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'A form of complacency'

"For example, AFP, the major news agency, funded with public funds, refuses to indicate that Hamas is a terrorist group," she added. Marine Le Pen is referring to the fact that AFP does not label movements, groups or individuals as terrorists, including Hamas, "without directly attributing the use of this word or without using quotation marks," the agency explained in a statement on Saturday.

Not using this word "is already a form of complacency towards an armed terrorist group," the MP said, after recalling the massacres committed on October 7 by Hamas on Israeli soil.

The position of Agence France-Presse

AFP's editor-in-chief in charge of ethical and editorial principles, Eric Wishart, recalled on Saturday that "this is a long-standing provision at the agency, in line with the editorial policies of other international news agencies and major media outlets such as the BBC".

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"AFP establishes its editorial guidelines independently, without any political influence or consideration," AFP news director Phil Chetwynd said on Sunday. "We focus on on-the-ground journalism, facts and factual depictions of events, which include things that are atrocious." As for Hamas, AFP specifies in its production that it is qualified as terrorist "notably by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Israel".

LFI criticised for its reluctance to use the word 'terrorist'

In addition to AFP, Marine Le Pen also pointed to the supposed "complacency" towards Hamas of "a certain number of associations", "sportsmen" and France Insoumise. LFI cadres have been heavily criticised for their reluctance to use the word "terrorism" to refer to the October 7 attack, preferring to speak of "war crimes".

Insoumise leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon said on Saturday that he was "in agreement with the semantic rigour of AFP" on the social network X, where he was reacting to accusations from the agency. "The word terrorism is a diversion to evade international justice and justify the right to massacre," he said.