Socialist Party criticizes Instagram posts by rebel Sophia Chikirou about slain Hamas leader, who denies any “tribute”

Screenshots of the LFI MP’s personal Instagram account regarding the Hamas leader were published on X on Saturday.

Several socialist leaders were outraged on Saturday, August 3, by a message from LFI MP close to Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Sophia Chikirou, relaying on her personal Instagram account a tribute to the leader of Hamas, Ismaïl Haniyeh, killed Wednesday in Tehran in a strike attributed to Israel. Screenshots of the personal Instagram account of the MP of La France insoumise were published on X. Sophia Chikirou did not initially deny having shared this four-page tribute to the leader of Hamas, originally published by the organization Urgence Palestine. Contacted by franceinfo on Saturday, she had not responded on Saturday.

The program of the New Popular Front “is clear”estimated on X the first secretary of the PS, Olivier Faure, referring the rebellious deputy to “provocations which only serve to provoke controversy which undermines collective work”, and words thati “only commit her”. “I will not work with elected officials, a party that endorses or refuses to condemn such positions”for his part, attacked the socialist mayor of Rouen, Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, who has been openly opposed since 2022 to an alliance between his party and that of Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

The LFI MP finally defended herself on Sunday against any support “to terrorist acts” from Hamas to Releaseasserting “not having paid any ‘homage’. The MP explained that she had only shared “a biography” of the Hamas leader and “a press release from his son in which he denounces the assassination”as “information”. Sophia Chikirou assures “having shared three visuals on my private Instagram account”which she deleted”four hours after their publication.”

The socialist president of the Occitanie region, Carole Delga, who has broken away from LFI, also expressed her indignation on social media. “Abject”she wrote, seeing it as a “apology for terrorism” and one “mouthpiece of hatred of Jews”. She regretted that the “NFP contracts and commitments”the electoral alliance which allowed the four left-wing parties (Socialist Party, LFI, Communist Party and The Ecologists) to come out on top in the legislative elections, without an absolute majority however, are once again “trampled”, and socialist values “flouted”.

This tribute “should ban her from political life. This form of complacency, recurrent in her party, must have no place in our Republic”the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism reacted on Saturday, announcing that it was referring the matter to its legal committee. The Union of Jewish Students of France also announced in a press release that it was filing a complaint for “apology for terrorism.”