“Giant mess”, “band of extremists”… Despite criticism, LFI assures that the Palestinian flag will be waved in the Assembly “as long as there is no ceasefire in Gaza”

A week after Sébastien Delogu, MP Rachel Keke waved a Palestinian flag during the Questions to the Government session in the hemicycle, causing a suspension of the session.

The Palestinian question was once again invited to the National Assembly on Tuesday June 4. Several left-wing MPs first sat in the stands dressed in black, red, white and green, the colors of the Palestinian flag during the government questions session, before LFI MP Rachel Keke brandished a flag, provoking a suspension of the session.

And regardless of the call to order, and the risk of a heavier sanction, the Insoumise Rachel Kéké supports “let the fight continue”. Sébastien Delogu, also an Insoumis MP, has already been excluded for 15 days for brandishing the Palestinian flag last week.

A new episode which infuriates the right and the majority. As when the head of the National Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet seeks to measure her words after this new episode in the middle of the war between Hamas and Israel: “This is not the place for this expression. We are not in a football match, we are not in a meeting, we are not in a theater“, she said. After reminding the rules: “The hemicycle is the place of debate, the place of democratic debate and the expression of parliamentarians is carried out exclusively orally”.

Others do not hesitate to hit hard against La France Insoumise like the president of the Republicans Eric Ciotti. “The rebels are a problem, he believes. We must put an end to the excesses, the violence, the provocations. The Republic cannot allow itself to be trampled on by a band of dangerous extremists, who respect nothing.”

His colleague LR Pierre-Henri Dumont adds: “What the deputies of the far left Insoumise are doing today is transforming the National Assembly into a giant mess for electoral purposes to attract the votes, in a few days, of a minority of a population of Muslim faith who are radicalizing and this is absolutely unworthy of the office of deputy.

As for the question of sanctions, the controversy is also growing: the current legislature has pronounced 109 sanctions, which is more than the total sanctions since the start of the Fifth Republic in 1958. The vast majority concern rebellious deputies. Since 1958, the maximum sanction has been pronounced four times, including three since June 2022, against Grégoire de Fournas (RN), Thomas Portes (LFI) and Sébastien Delogu (LFI). As a reminder, there are only four sanctions in the National Assembly: call to order, call to order with entry in the minutes, censure, and censure with temporary exclusion. The first two can be pronounced by the president of the session, the other two must be proposed by the Bureau, then voted on in the hemicycle.

But LFI claims to defend the voice of France by being on the side of the oppressed. There is no question of putting away the Palestinian flag, assures the head of the Insoumis deputies Mathilde Panot: “We say to Yaël Braun-Pivet that they can sanction us as much as they want, we will not be silent. The Palestinian flag has entered the Assembly, it will not come out until there is a ceasefire in Gaza.”