Israeli-Arab conflict | Call for a silent march in Paris on Sunday

The French-speaking cultural community is calling for a “silent, united, humanist and peaceful march” in Paris next Sunday. An initiative supported by playwright Wajdi Mouawad and Belgian actress Lubna Azabal, who starred in the film adaptation of his play Fires.

“We are organizing a silent, united, humanist and peaceful march which will open with a single long white banner. No political demands, no slogans. White flags, white handkerchiefs are welcome,” writes in a press release the collective Another Voice, chaired by Belgian actress Lubna Azabal, who played the character of Nawal in the film Firesdirected by Denis Villeneuve.

This parade must leave on Sunday from the Institute of the Arab World (IMA) towards the Museum of Art and History of Judaism, to end at the Arts et Métiers metro station.

Among the approximately 500 personalities of French and Francophone culture, we find the actress Isabelle Adjani, the director Claude Lelouch and the screenwriter and director Julie Gayet. They all want the “fratricidal war” between Palestinians and Israelis to “end immediately”.

“Since October 7, 2023, horror and suffering have been tearing Palestinians and Israelis apart according to a monstrous mathematics that has already lasted for a long time. This fratricidal war affects us all, and whatever our reasons or affinities on either side of the wall, we hope that it stops immediately and that the two peoples can finally live in peace,” writes the collective, which part the Lebanese-Quebec playwright Wajdi Mouawad.

“The words “choice” and “clan” are imposed on us,” regrets the collective. “In response to this injunction to choose a side to hate, it is urgent to make another voice heard: that of union,” he said. “The voice of union is the multiple, polyphonic, living voice, it is proof of the powerful bond that exists in France between Jewish, Muslim, Christian, atheist and agnostic citizens.”

Among the other signatories are the actors Sami Bouajila, Pierre Richard, Elsa Zylberstein and Laure Calamy, the author Leïla Slimani, the designer Philippe Geluck and the singer Michel Jonasz.

On Sunday, more than 180,000 people demonstrated in France to show their rejection of anti-Semitism in the face of the sharp increase in the number of hostile acts against people of the Jewish faith since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7.

With Agence France-Presse