Socialist Party criticizes tribute by rebellious Sophia Chikirou to Hamas leader after screenshots were released

Screenshots of the personal Instagram account of the LFI MP from Paris were published on X on Saturday, without the MP denying having relayed this four-page tribute to the leader of Hamas.

Several socialist leaders were outraged, Saturday, August 3, by a message from the 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 LFI MP from Paris were published on X, without Sophia Chikirou denying having relayed this four-page tribute to the leader of Hamas, originally published by the organization Urgence Palestine. Contacted by franceinfo on Saturday, she has not yet responded.

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 to an alliance between his party and that of Jean-Luc Mélenchon since 2022.

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 an “apology for terrorism” and a “mouthpiece for hatred of Jews.” She regretted that the “NFP contracts and commitments”an electoral alliance which allowed the four left-wing parties PS, LFI, PCF and Ecologists to come out on top in the legislative elections, without an absolute majority however, 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.”