Retailleau initiates dissolution procedure for Urgence Palestine

Bruno Retailleau announced on Wednesday, on the eve of May 1, that he is initiating the dissolution procedure for the group Urgence Palestine, as well as Lyon Populaire, which belongs to the far-right, after having launched on Tuesday the procedure for the antifascist group La Jeune Garde.

As a guest on Cnews/Europe 1, the Interior Minister argued in relation to Urgence Palestine that it was necessary to "crack down on Islamists." "Islamism is an ideology that tries to manipulate a religion. There is a disfigurement of faith," he said. "We must not disfigure the just cause of the Palestinians," continued Retailleau, who emphasized that "many of our Muslim compatriots profess a faith that is perfectly compatible with the values of the Republic."

The collective Urgence Palestine, created in the wake of the unprecedented Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which triggered the war in Gaza, claims to gather "citizens, organizations, and associative, union, and political movements mobilized for the self-determination of the Palestinian people." The group regularly organizes protests, which have sometimes been banned by the authorities.

"At a time when the Palestinian people are facing genocide, famine, at a time when they (the Israelis, Editor's note) want to destroy, annihilate the Palestinian people, what does the French government do? It wants to dissolve our collective; it is unbearable," reacted one of Urgence Palestine's activists, Omar Al Soumi. "It is the reality of a France that is complicit in genocide," he accused, in a video published on social media.

Urgence Palestine has received numerous messages of support from the far-left and radical left. "No to the dissolution of Urgence Palestine," wrote the New Anticapitalist Party on Instagram, denouncing "pretexts to silence voices in solidarity with Palestine!" Insoumise MEP Rima Hassan also criticized the dissolutions initiated against La Jeune Garde and Urgence Palestine. "The authoritarian and fascist drift of Macron is as real, tangible, and concrete," she reacted on X.

Tsedek!, which presents itself as a "decolonial Jewish collective," also expressed support for these two organizations.

"The government calling for the dissolution of Urgence Palestine is the Republic reclaiming its rights and reaffirming that one cannot be anti-Semitic with impunity in France," praised, conversely, Sarah Aizenman, president of the collective "Nous vivrons," to AFP. "This organization does not defend the rights of the Palestinians; it supports a terrorist organization," accused Aizenman.