TAHA BOUHAFS. LFI’s sexual and gender-based violence monitoring committee is implicated by ex-candidate Taha Bouhaf who speaks, through his lawyers, of a procedure “outside the law”.
[Mis à jour le 7 juillet 2022 à 16h56] Yet another twist rekindles the media storm around ex-LFI candidate Taha Bouhafs. On July 5, he addressed his party in an open letter, questioning an opaque internal procedure following the accusations of sexual violence against him, made public in May. Today, his lawyers denounce a procedure “outside the law” carried out by the LFI sexual and gender-based violence monitoring committee, which would prevent Taha Bouhafs from responding to the accusations against him. “Taha Bouhafs intends, through his advice, to reaffirm his right to know the accusations against him in order to be able to respond to them, in the same way as any publicly accused citizen”, write in a press release his three lawyers, My William Bourdon, Raphaël Kempf and Vincent Brengarth.
The independent journalist and activist found himself in the spotlight in May, when the media revealed the sexual assault complaints filed against him, forcing him to withdraw his candidacy for the legislative elections. At the beginning of July, he returned to the news, this time to defend himself… Or rather to accuse in turn. In this open letter, he declares to have “never been confronted with the said accusations”. He criticizes the party for not having allowed him to defend himself against the accusations of sexual violence against him, and demanded “a fair and equitable procedure” in which he could “know what he is being accused of”. How did the party react to this challenge from its ex-candidate? Do we know more about these accusations? We take stock.
In this letter, Taha Bouhafs therefore claimed not to have been made aware of the content of these accusations or of the identity of the complainants: “Whatever the incrimination of which I am the subject, I should be able to know precisely what I am criticized for being able to issue my own version of the facts”, can we read. More specifically, he accused LFI MP Clémentine Autain of having put pressure on him to abandon his candidacy on behalf of the party on May 9. He explained that she would have pushed him to hide the reasons for his withdrawal, so as not to reveal that they were linked to this report filed with the follow-up committee against gender-based and sexual violence at LFI. He thus contradicts the version of the member for Seine-Saint-Denis who would have argued that the procedure did not “have to go to the end” since he “would have withdrawn himself”. For his part, he explains that it is precisely at his request that he withdrew, so that the “procedure takes place calmly”.
A few hours after the open letter from the former LFI candidate on July 5, the party hastened to respond to his criticisms in a communicated disseminated on social networks. Explaining that he wanted to “respect the complainants’ desire for anonymity”, he began by denying the accusations made against MP Clémentine Autain. “We do not recognize ourselves in his version of some of the facts that led to his withdrawal from the candidacy for the legislative elections but we hear his approach and take it into account”, explains the party, which wants to recall its “feminist commitment” and its concern for respect for legal procedure. We learn that the party would have received “two reports likely to be characterized as serious accusations of sexual assault” precisely when “Taha Bouhafs was preparing to be invested” by the political movement. LFI explains that it took note of the withdrawal of Taha Bouhafs “without communicating publicly on this subject”: these are “the media” who “revealed the real reason” for his withdrawal in May. Finally, if no “confrontation” will be organized out of respect for the complainants, Taha Bouhafs should be heard by the “party authorities”. LFI ensures that it continues its “work of conviction” with the complainants so that they “seize justice” which the party says it cannot replace”. The party concludes: “The other political organizations which have no procedure in this area are not likely to be faced with all the difficulties posed by the settlement of such situations!”, in response to political figures who criticize the internal functioning and the management of accusations of gender-based and sexual violence within the organization.
On July 6, the vice-president of the Insoumis group at the Assembly Manuel Bompard also reacted to France Inter “There is a procedure and it is legitimate for him to ask to defend himself,” he explained in response to Taha Bouhafs’ letter. On the other hand, according to him, it is “not true to say” that there will be no investigation or “that he will not be confronted with the facts of which he is accused”; he explains that there was indeed “an emergency measure” since these testimonies “arrived at the time when he was to be invested as a candidate in the legislative elections”. The deputy specifies that it is “out of prudence” that it was decided not to invest it.
On May 11, 2022, BFM-TV and Mediapart revealed that Taha Bouhafs was accused by an activist of the LFI party of sexual violence. The alleged facts had been reported a few days before to the Monitoring Committee against sexist and sexual violence of insubordinate France, a party which had invested Taha Bouhafs for the legislative elections. If the two media had argued that a single testimony had been recorded by the LFI Gender Violence Monitoring Committee, Mediapart Even arguing that the person who made the report was an ex-girlfriend of Taha Bouhafs, feminist activist Caroline de Haas had already specified at that time that “two different testimonies” existed, coming from “people who do not know each other”. In addition, LFI’s follow-up committee against gender-based and sexual violence had mentioned “the women who spoke”. The press release published on July 5 reaffirmed this track of two alleged women victims: “Two reports likely to be characterized as serious accusations of sexual assault have been sent to us”. However, no more information has, at this stage, filtered through on the accusers, or even on the exact content of the charges against the activist.
Taha Bouhafs, a longtime rebel, presented himself under the banner of Nupes in the 14th district of the Rhône, made up of the towns of Vénissieux, Saint-Fons and Saint-Priest. This position was previously held by LREM deputy Yves Blein, who won in the second round of the 2017 legislative elections against Damien Moncheau, FN candidate. At the time, the candidates of the left had arrived at the foot of the podium, with only 14.59% of the votes in the first round for the LFI Benjamin Nivard and 10.45% for Michèle Picard of the PCF. This year, Taha Bouhafs had to face the youtubeur policeman Bruno Attal, engaged for the Reconquest! party, who is also a character known for his very radical positions: the two men had repeatedly challenged each other on social networks. Finally, it was the candidate of the Nupes, the Insoumis Idir Boumertit who won the second round of the legislative elections on June 19th.
For Taha Bouhafs, the adventure came to an end very quickly. Invested on May 7, withdrawn two days later. In a message posted on the night of May 9 to 10, he declared that he ultimately no longer competed for the deputation in the 14th district of the Rhône. He described a very complicated situation psychologically, with a rain of “slander”, “insult”, “death threat” poured on his person every day. “I hope this statement does not make you give up.” Before continuing by addressing Nupes activists who follow him closely on social networks: “Keep fighting. For my part, I tried but I can’t do it anymore.” Afterwards, the reason for his withdrawal proved to be more complex, mixing accusations of sexual violence and bashing on the part of the far right. In fact, his candidacy was from the beginning the subject of tensions within the union of the left following his nomination by the Nupes for the legislative elections. Criticized, he was for various reasons: his conviction for “public insult because of the origin” towards the police officer Linda Kebbab had hit the mark, as much as his militant actions described as too radical by part of the political class.
At only 25 years old, this freelance journalist is a personality that has caused a lot of ink to flow. Originally from Isère, he first covered the news of struggles and social movements for the media There if I’m there and Media. He became known by filming Alexandre Benalla assaulting a couple of demonstrators at Place de la Contrescarpe in Paris on May 1, 2018. He was thus at the origin of the great “Benalla affair”. An anti-racist activist, he was also, with the Adama Committee and the Collective against Islamophobia in France, one of the initiators of the march against Islamophobia on November 10, 2019. This demonstration, organized to denounce the stigmatization of the French of Muslim faith, aroused criticism from the far right, and had even caused controversy on the left, the PS having refused to participate.
The controversies then followed, between the false rumor that he relayed concerning the death of a student after a police intervention during the occupation of the Parisian campus of Tolbiac or the Linda Kebbab affair. The latter is a police unionist whom Taha Bouhafs described as a “service Arab” on Twitter in June 2020. Linda Kebbab having filed a complaint, he was sentenced for the offense of public insult on the grounds of origin and a fine. of 1500 euros, a court decision which Taha Bouhafs appealed. The case is still under investigation and has not finished talking about it, since it is frequently used by his political opponents, in particular on the far right, to discredit him and his movement. In general, the attacks against him came from all sides, the communist Fabien Roussel having asked that he withdraw his candidacy: “I do not understand that rebellious France invests a candidate condemned for racial insult”, had- he explained, in reference to the Linda Kebbab case. If Taha Bouhafs had therefore explained that he was withdrawing his candidacy because of this surge of criticism and insults, we now know that another reason may have motivated his choice.