The PFLP, or Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. If its name rings a little less loudly than in the past in Europe, the PFLP is in reality a historic Palestinian movement responsible for spectacular attacks in the 1970s, and classified as a terrorist organization in the West. Gradually becoming a minority in the Gaza Strip, he has returned to the forefront since October 7, 2023, for his alleged role in the detention of Israeli hostages… And for the controversy he recently created on the scene French politics.
In recent days, the PFLP has even become a privileged target for Israel: three of the members of its Lebanese branch were killed in a missile strike by the Israeli army launched in the heart of Beirut, this Monday, September 30 in the morning. For good reason: the group supports Lebanese Hezbollah in its operations carried out in northern Israel “in support” of Hamas.
In Gaza too, the PFLP is a direct ally of Hamas. Among its support actions: the Marxist-Leninist organization is accused by the Israeli authorities of holding hostage the Bibas family, kidnapped during the attacks of October 7, 2023.
A movement historically known for its attacks
Classified as a terrorist organization by the European Union, the United States, Israel, Japan, Canada and Australia, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is one of the first Palestinian movements, created in 1967 by Georges Habache. Linked to a form of radical Arab nationalism, the PFLP inherited a revolutionary and Marxist influence in the 1970s. At the time, it joined Yasser Arafat’s PLO, but presented a harder line than the majority party, Fatah. He does not recognize the Oslo Accords, which set the stage for a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and then campaigns for a single state comprising Jews and Arabs.
He is responsible for numerous attacks. The most famous: the hijacking of an Air France plane in 1976, linking Tel Aviv to Paris, following which the 240 passengers were held hostage in Uganda, finally freed by a raid by the Israeli armed forces during which the brother of Benjamin Netanyahu is killed. Attacks then increased on Israeli territory in the 2000s, with the armed wing of the PFLP, the “Red Sign Brigades”, mainly carrying out suicide attacks. Its secretary general, Ahmad Saadat, is still reportedly detained in Israeli prisons, sentenced in 2008 to thirty years in prison.
The PFLP and French politics
Today, the secular Marxist movement mixes with Palestinian Islamist movements in the fight against the State of Israel. If its influence has greatly diminished since Hamas came to power in 2006 (it only obtained three seats in Parliament), it has recently made headlines as far away as France. On July 10, the movement published a press release which caught the attention of the media in France and which the New Popular Front, then emerging in a very good position from the early legislative elections, would have done well.
“The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine followed with great interest the Alliance of French Lefts leading the results of the legislative elections and confirms that this is an important change in France which could contribute to intensifying the pressure on the official French regime to change its policy on numerous issues, notably the Palestinian question,” the press release stated. Provoking an embarrassed reaction from the left. “There is no link between the NFP and this organization,” said Manuel Bompard, the coordinator of La France insoumise. Several connections between figures from La France Insoumise and members of the PFLP have however been made public.
In October 2023 in particular, the rebellious MP Ersilia Soudais invited the activist Mariam Abou Daqqa, member of the PFLP, to the National Assembly, a few weeks before her expulsion from French territory. In May 2023, several members of the Insoumis also signed a platform demanding the release of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, a member of the PFLP detained in France, sentenced to life imprisonment for complicity in the assassination of Israeli and American diplomats in 1987.