French pro-Palestinian group contests government decision to shut it down

A French pro-Palestinian protest group is contesting a government decision to shut it down, saying the move was politically motivated and based on “false” arguments as part of a wider crackdown on the movement for Palestinian rights.

Urgence Palestine (Emergency Palestine), created in 2023 to protest against Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, filed its counterarguments to the shutdown procedure on Thursday, their lawyer Elsa Marcel says.

French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, explaining the decision, said in a letter dated April 28 to one of the group’s founders, Omar Alsoumi, that Urgence Palestine had provoked violent acts, including toward Jewish people, and had called for armed struggle.

Asked about the decision, Alsoumi tells Reuters, “This shows the partiality of the French government on the genocidal war that the Palestinian people are experiencing.”

He says the group, which has been organizing protests across France over the past 19 months, rejects any conflation of Jews and the Israeli government and that Palestinians have the right to resist occupation under international law.

The French Interior Ministry does not respond to a request for comment.