Jean-Luc Mélenchon's conference on Palestine canceled by the University of Lille, LFI wants to keep it “in another place”

Jean-Luc Mélenchon. MAXPPP – CHRISTOPHE PETIT TESSON

The conference "news in Palestine" by Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Rima Hassan scheduled for Thursday will ultimately not take place at the # University of Lille: as requested by several right-wing officials, the establishment announced on Wednesday that it was banning the event, which will still be held but "in a new place", warns LFI.

"The conditions are no longer met to guarantee the serenity of the debates" due to the "worrying" rise in international tensions after &quot ;the military escalation that took place on April 13 and 14 in the Middle East, indicated the university in a press release, in reference to the' drone and missile attack launched by Iran against Israel.

"We will not be silent. The conference by Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Rima Hassan will be held in Lille this Thursday, April 18. Communication about the new location will be sent to those registered, explains La France insoumise in a press release targeting "the presidency of the university which shows itself incapable of resisting the pressures which attack freedom of expression".

LFI has made the denunciation of Israeli operations in Gaza one of the main axes of its campaign for the European elections on June 9, defended through meetings and conferences by Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

"We denounce the exploitation of this conference by supporters of unconditional support for the Netanyahu government", added the radical left movement.

"It was enough for PS Jérôme Guedj to denounce the logo of the student association and for a Macronist MP (Violette Spillebout, editor's note) calls for creating disorder to destroy academic freedom, lashed out at X, the founder of the movement.

Since the start of the week, several elected officials, including the president (LR) of Hauts-de-France, Xavier Bertrand, have called for the event to be banned.

"This political meeting, disguised as a conference with anti-Zionist overtones, had no place in a French university ", he reacted on Wednesday.

The boss of LR Eric Ciotti denounced a "provocation" which "stirs up a conflict and imports it onto the national territory" and welcomed a cancellation that has become "indispensable" in his eyes.

At issue, in particular, was the logo of the student association "Libre Palestine" at the initiative of the conference.

This logo shows a territory encompassing Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

A way of "denying the existence of the State of Israel&amp ;quot; for some, including the head of the socialist list in the European elections, Raphaël Glucksmann.

"Unstabilized struggles"

In a press release sent to AFP by LFI, the Free Palestine association, created in November 2023 in the wake of the October 7 attacks, ensures that its logo &quot ;in no way denies the existence of Israel.

"We have simply mobilized a map which represents a region of the world crossed by an undeniable process of colonization and whose definition of borders is an issue of unstabilized struggles ", specifies the association, adding that it has never "never promoted hatred or uttered anti-Semitic remarks".

"This conference was however supported by an association registered in the prefecture and approved by the University and organized in strict compliance with the rules established by the universities French", specify the Insoumis in their press release.

Last Wednesday, a conference by Mr. Mélenchon at the University of Rennes was canceled for security reasons, after a threatening email. Another was canceled in Bordeaux in October.

The founder of LFI is due to speak on Wednesday evening at a campaign meeting in Roubaix, with the Northern MP David Guiraud and Rima Hassan.

The controversial Franco-Palestinian activist, seventh on the list of European rebels, has in the past said she defends the solution of a "binational state& ;quot; while LFI is in favor of the two-state solution like the immense majority of the political class.

"A cry from the heart" and "a militant word", defended the one who qualifies Israel as a "fascist colonial entity", now saying to register, as as "politically responsible", "in the framework of two States side by side".