the RN deputy author of racist remarks sanctioned?

GREGOIRE DE FOURNAS. This Friday, November 4, the deputy RN could be targeted by sanctions taken by the office of the National Assembly following the controversial and deemed racist remarks made in the hemicycle.

[Mis à jour le 4 novembre 2022 à 14h21] “Let them return to Africa”, this sentence pronounced in the National Assembly by the deputy Grégoire de Fournas of the National Rally (RN) shocked (almost) unanimously the parliamentarians. The office of the hemicycle is due to meet this Friday, November 4 at 2:30 p.m. to decide on possible punitive measures. This morning on RMC, Carlos Martens Bilongo, the deputy of La France insoumis (LFI) to whom the remarks of the far-right deputy could have been addressed asked that “the heaviest sanction be retained”, joined by the various forces of Nupes ( LFI, PS, EELV, PCF). For her part, Marine Le Pen denounced a “crude controversy”, the remarks made by her colleague not supposedly addressing LFI deputy Carlos Martens Bilongo, but targeting “migrants transported by boats by NGOs”.

Grégoire de Fournas, accustomed to radical positions and slippages on the issue of migrants, maintained his position and his defense on Twitter by declaring “totally assume my comments on anarchic migration policy” this Friday, November 4. guest on BFM TV, the elected also attacked the deputy Carlos Martens Bilongo, “who feels that there is a blow to play in community victimization by defining himself first as a black deputy while I have always seen him as a French deputy of the nation”. The elected official of the RN does not intend to apologize and says he is the victim of a “shameful manipulation of LFI which diverts my remarks”, speech which he repeats in a letter sent to Carlos Martens Bilongo and consulted by BFM TV.

A sanction pronounced against Grégoire de Fournas?

The elected representative of Gironde is the subject of criticism from all the left-wing parties and the majority who accuse him of racism and discrimination either with regard to his colleague sitting on the benches of LFI and of Congolese origin who broached the subject of illegal immigration when he was questioned by the far-right elected official on two occasions, either against migrants since, according to Grégoire de Fournas’ explanations, he was indeed targeting them in his statement. At 2:30 p.m., the office of the lower house of Parliament meets “to decide on a possible sanction against” the far-right parliamentarian “. A sanction which cannot be criminal because the deputies are protected from the comments that they were able to hold during the exercise of their functions, it is a constitutional right enshrined in article 26 of the Constitution; thus, “no member of Parliament may be prosecuted, searched, arrested, detained or judged on the occasion of the opinions or votes cast by him in the exercise of his functions”.

The other political forces are calling for punitive measures: the president of the LFI group in the Assembly, Mathilde Panot, demanded that the highest level of sanction be retained, namely the temporary exclusion and censorship of Grégoire de Fournas. Such a decision would prevent him from sitting for 15 sessions in the National Assembly and would deprive him of one month’s parliamentary allowance. Jean-Luc Mélenchon also demanded a punishment “proportional to the act, and the proportion is ‘outside'” he chanted in front of the cameras of BFM TV. An option already ruled out by the RN deputy concerned who said this morning on the same channel: “I remain a deputy”.

Grégoire de Fournas’ racist insult also prompted the majority to speak out. The presidential camp is demanding sanctions and has launched a petition for the resignation of the RN deputy, which has been posted on the change.org site. For her part, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne recalled that “racism has no place in our democracy” while Emmanuel Macron said he was “struck” by “intolerable remarks” according to The Parisian. Asked this Friday, November 4, 2022 about RMC-BFMTV, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin expressed his astonishment and called for Grégoire de Fournas to resign: “I have been in the National Assembly for fifteen years in one way or another, it is the first time I heard something so ignominious.” did he declare. Gérald Darmanin also added that the “question of resignation” had to be asked.

Who is Gregory of Fournas?

Grégoire de Fournas is the MP for the 5th constituency of Gironde. He is also a member of the Economic Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, and rapporteur for the mission to monitor the application of the Egalim 2 law, which aims to better protect farmers’ remuneration. Inserted in the National Rally, he has sat in the Assembly since his victory in the legislative elections of 2022, after a defeat in the 2017 polls, and has been elected municipal since 2020. Before that, the 37-year-old man sat on the departmental council of Gironde between 2015 and 2021. Member of the RN since 2011, he campaigned in his constituency for the defense of hunting, and also positioned himself against a wind farm project in the town of Lesparre-Médoc, according to information from South West.

Embarrassing old tweets deleted

The defense of the deputy of the RN who denied any form of racism, saw his defense undermined when certain tweets which he deleted after the controversy resurfaced, captured by Internet users. Among the remarks made by Grégoire de Fournas we find a publication of 2017: “In Africa, they all love France and its allowances. We welcome all of Africa?!” had he reacted to a tweet from Julien Aubert of the Republicans.

According The Dispatch, Grégoire de Fournas had yet sent an email to Carlos Martens Bilongo to assure him that he would “never utter or tolerate any racist statement or insult towards you”. These tweets aimed particularly at the African continent are not the only embarrassing remarks made by the RN deputy.

Grégoire de Fournas accustomed to slippage on the subject of migrants

The far-right MP is not at his first skid on the subject of migrants. As the media reports Street89, Grégoire de Fournas has already created controversy in the Médoc because of radical positions “in particular against the reception of young unaccompanied minors”, but also for “acquaintances with the most racist and anti-Semitic fringes of his audience on his page Facebook”. During the municipal elections of 2020, Grégoire de Fournas was elected opposition councilor for the town hall of Pauillac, having failed to be elected mayor. On May 25, 2020, in the middle of the countryside, he posted a video on his Facebook page in which he alerted to the arrival of 70 migrants in the town, as reported Street 89. “Supposedly minors but who are in fact false unaccompanied minors”, he affirmed.

He then launched a petition against the installation of these migrants in the town, which had collected 600 signatures, before boasting of having reversed the Departmental Council of the Gironde in relation to these migrants. An assertion which was denied by the Departmental Council, which added that the 70 migrants would be welcomed throughout the territory of the Médoc. Street89 also recounts that the far-right elected official had already attacked the Departmental Council in 2016 regarding the arrival of 36 unaccompanied minors from the jungle of Calais, who have since been installed on the estate of the commune of ‘Hostens in Gironde. In 2018, during a public meeting on the installation of a reception center for unaccompanied foreign minors in the municipality of Saint-Macaire in Gironde, the site news.fr says that Grégoire de Fournas, who was then a departmental councilor, had tried several times to speak out to oppose the project, but had to change his mind in the face of the public who said to him: “Out, out!”.