All that glitters is not gold, but still… Take Rima Hassan, recently arrived in politics within France Insoumise. Have we ever seen a candidate, number seven on a European list, be so much in the spotlight? The Franco-Palestinian lawyer, who is presented as the new protégé of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, spokesperson for the Palestinians, at the heart of numerous controversies since October 7 and the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel, has become a darling in the within LFI, star-studded to the point sometimes of making some Rebels groan who would like her to erase Manon Aubry a little less – the one at the top of the list. The polls did not give much hope for the Insoumis for the June 9 election but they turned out, one month before the vote, to be “less dramatic” than expected, and were around 9%. This is still better than the 6.3% of the European elections in 2019. Many see it as a “Rima effect”, at LFI and even elsewhere.
She never stops making people envious. Marine Tondelier’s ecologists are biting their fingers, even though they had offered her a non-eligible place on their list, which she immediately refused. She, who had not planned to be a candidate before LFI finished convincing her last January, is at the heart of media and political attention which makes even the Zemmourists pale. Struggling in the polls and plagued by some internal divisions over the strategy led by Marion Maréchal, Eric Zemmour’s party is seeking to exist in this European campaign where it has put new faces into orbit, including its very dear advisor Sarah Knafo.
“Ultra-hot”
And this one, number three on the Reconquest list, sees a vein in Rima Hassan. According to information from L’Express, she wants to organize a debate with Insoumise and not just anywhere: on the set of Do not touch My TV, Cyril Hanouna’s show on C8. She even spoke about it to the famous presenter who is “ultra-hot”, says Knafo who confirms to L’Express her desire to debate with Insoumise: “It could be very interesting for her, because we are really antagonistic.” This Tuesday, the Sunday Newspaper also joined the dance by sending Rima Hassan a proposal for a debate between the two women in the columns of the Sunday duck directed by Geoffroy Lejeune, close to Zemmour.
Rima Hassan has little desire to respond to the invitation, and even less to debate with Sarah Knafo. “I’m not going to give him any light,” she explains to L’Express. Those around him became all the more annoyed by so much insistence from Knafo and those close to him that Marion Maréchal increased the number of requests for debates with Manon Aubry, all of which were refused by the latter. Knafo-Hassan, a debate which will probably not see the light of day but which demonstrates once again that identity struggles have become the political battle front on which some intend to exist, a political-media obsession which inflames society.
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