Is the French judiciary against Palestine?
On May 27, the Court of Appeal of Ai en-Provence sentenced me to pay a fine of €17,000 ($19,500), which includes compensation to Zionist associations
On May 27, the Court of Appeal of Ai en-Provence sentenced me to pay a fine of €17,000 ($19,500), which includes compensation to Zionist associations that were civil parties to the case. It was a clear example of the troubling evolution in the French judiciary’s treatment of the Palestinian cause. Today, another case deserves greater attention because of what it signifies and reveals, because it is difficult to distort, and above all because it sheds light on a profound transformation in the French judicial system’s approach to Palestine. In March 2024, the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation, the highest court in the French judicial system, upheld the conviction of Mohamed Makni, a businessman, father, and deputy mayor of Echirolles. The statement attributed to him did not exceed a single sentence: “They are quick to qualify as terrorism what in our eyes is a clear act of resistance.” This statement did not come from a Palestinian military commander or a Hamas official. Rather, it was a quote from Ahmed Ounaies, Tunisia’s former foreign minister and former ambassador under the regime of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to Russia and India, a figure far removed from any revolutionary discourse. Because he cited this political analysis, Makni was sentenced to four months in prison, suspended and barred from holding any public office for four months – a ruling upheld by both the Court of Appeal and in March this year, by the Court of Cassation, in a decision that can by no means be considered ordinary.
For the first time since October 7, 2023, France’s highest court intervened directly in the political and legal battle surrounding the classification of Palestinian resistance. At the heart of the issue, for more than a century, has been a fundamental question: do people living under prolonged military occupation have the right to resist? While international law answers in the affirmative, and much of the Arab, African, Asian and Latin American world shares that view, official France now appears to answer differently. Makni’s conviction does not punish incitement to kill or commit attacks; rather, it punishes the mere linking of occupation and resistance. In other words, it criminalises a political framework shared by people far beyond Hamas supporters. The Court of Cassation has provided a troubling answer, one that leads us to believe that French courts are not only operating under the influence of the government, but that the government itself is operating under foreign influence. This development did not emerge on its own. Following the events of October 7, 2023, the French government chose to use the charge of glorifying terrorism as a primary tool for controlling public debate on Palestine. The function of this charge gradually changed after having originally been established to combat Islamic State (ISIL) propaganda and jihadist recruitment, becoming instead a means of policing discourse that refuses to separate the events of October 7 from their historical context.
The BriefWire