TAHA BOUHAFS. Taha Bouhafs, a young militant of the radical left, had presented himself to the deputies in the 14th district of the Rhône under the banner of Nupes. Controversial figure, he suffered criticism and crystallized the opposition… Until he withdrew his candidacy.
It’s already the end for the LFI candidate. Taha Bouhafs, freelance journalist and anti-racist activist, intended to wear the colors of this union in the 14th district of the Rhône. A novice in politics, he was able to count on the support of the great figures of his party, LFI, from François Ruffin to Clémentine Autain. His parliamentary campaign was very quickly announced to be eventful, the adversaries jostling to compete with him in the Rhône. Faced with an “unprecedented storm of attacks”, he announced in a statement posted on his Twitter account last night that he was withdrawing his candidacy.
Taha Bouhafs was to be a candidate on behalf of the New Popular Ecological and Social Union, NUPES, was born at the beginning of May, when the EELV, PCF and PS parties successively accepted the agreement proposed by LFI. The French left, in full recomposition, is dividing up the constituencies on the territory to obtain a majority of deputies in the National Assembly during the legislative elections next June.
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 Reconquête! party, who is also a character known for his very radical positions. A former trade unionist, he is a defender of the theory of the great replacement. He had made no secret of his desire to win this confrontation with Taha Bouhafs, calling him “racist, anti-Semitic and anti-cop“. For his part, the ex-LFI candidate wrote on Twitter: “This agent of the State who speaks of a great replacement and who stigmatizes Muslims and French people of North African origin will only win 2 things: 1 legal complaint, 1 electoral beating on June 12 “.
But the adventure will stop there. In a message posted on the night of May 9 to 10, he declared that he was no longer running for deputy in the 14th constituency 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 will not make you give up,” he wrote to Nupès activists who follow him closely on social networks. “Keep fighting. For my part, I tried but I can’t do it anymore,” he admitted. A withdrawal confirmed on May 10 by party representatives such as Alexis Corbière, Clémentine Autain and François Ruffin.
If Taha Bouhafs is a highly criticized political and militant figure, he was nevertheless able to count on the faithful support of his camp, the Insoumis. On April 29, Alexis Corbière, the LFI spokesperson, during his visit to Europe 1, denounced a “crime of facies” on the part of the opponents of Taha Bouhafs, seeing in the latter’s recurring attacks a “relentlessness of little hyenas”. In the same way, the number 2 of the party, Adrien Quatennens, took a stand: “Taha Bouhafs is not racist. Taha Bouhafs is an activist from working-class neighborhoods whose form and expression perhaps does not please some beautiful people” at the microphone of LCI. Finally, it was the turn of Clémentine Autain, deputy LFI, to affirm that she supported the investiture of Taha Bouhafs on the set of Public Senate.
At the time of his withdrawal from the legislative campaign, he can once again count on their support. If Alexis Corbière and Adrien Quatennens said they “take note” of this decision, without however denying the “statement of failure” that it represents, others have openly defended it. This is the case of François Ruffin, who regretted the great “uniformity of the National Assembly”, during his passage on franceinfo on the morning of the 10th. “I want the National Assembly to be representative of the diversity of French society and we can consider that Taha Bouhafs represents part of the sensitivity of the French population”, he continued. Clémentine Autain, for her part, published a tweet of support, indignant at the racism and discrimination falling in bursts against a “young man without a diploma, from working-class neighborhoods and immigration”. Above all, it was Jean-Luc Mélenchon himself who regretted this withdrawal, believing that a “pack fell against him”, and that this exposure to insults should be “hard to live with at 25”. He even apologized for not having “know how to comfort him as much as necessary”.
Taha Bouhafs withdraws his candidacy for the legislative elections. A mob attacked him. At 25, it’s hard to live with daily death threats and public accusations. I blame myself for not having been able to comfort him as much as necessary.
— Jean-Luc Melenchon (@JLMelenchon) May 10, 2022
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.
Be that as it may, LFI should still defend its voice against these opponents. On the morning of the 10th, Alexis Corbière promised that there would be a candidacy in this constituency, the party not wishing to let the communist Michèle Picard overtake him.