Jean-Luc Mélenchon facing Patrick Hetzel. The leader of La France insoumise called on Friday to “put Palestinian flags wherever possible”, in reaction to a circular from the Minister of Higher Education and Research on “maintaining order” in universities on the eve of October 7, the anniversary of the Hamas attack in Israel.
Patrick Hetzel justified this warning by a series of pro-Palestinian demonstrations this week in Paris in front of Sciences Po and the Institute of Oriental Languages. Actions which, according to him, go “against the principles of neutrality and secularism”. “It’s an abuse of power,” replied Jean-Luc Mélenchon during a political meeting in Paris. The minister “says that as the university is secular, we should not talk about Gaza”, but “talking about geopolitics is not an attack on secularism”, he explained.
“I ask the student youth to rebellious, not to accept this ban,” continued the rebellious patriarch, objecting that “at the university, we are talking about adult citizens who are adults. […] so they say what they want, because we are in a free country.” And added: “So I recommend that from the 8th (October) we put Palestinian flags wherever we can, in a manner that this person does not have the last word.”
Lebanese flags too
A few minutes later, Jean-Luc Mélenchon also suggested that “a flag that we could put with that of the Palestinians is that of Lebanon”, where the bombings of the Israeli army against Hezbollah have caused more a thousand deaths in ten days. “The Lebanese army does not have any means of combat and does not have the possibility of protecting its own borders,” he lamented, judging that “it is total hypocrisy from there to say that Hezbollah poses a problem.”
“Hezbollah is a component of the Lebanese people and it is not up to us to decide who is a good component and who is a bad one,” he insisted, stressing that “the Lebanese people have the right to sovereignty on its territory. Before encouraging his troops again: “Put up Lebanese flags, so that the Lebanese know that we have not forgotten them, that we are not abandoning them to murder (and) to the violence of the terrifying neighbor that they have the misfortune to have on their side.”