The latest controversial outings of the Insoumise are causing a stir even at the France-Israel friendship groups and studies on anti-Semitism. The Renaissance presidents of the two groups, Mathieu Lefèvre and Constance Le Grip, have called for the removal of two rebellious MPs from office. At issue are Aymeric Caron, who holds the vice-presidency of the friendship group, and Ersilia Soudais, vice-president of the study group on anti-Semitism.
Mathieu Lefèvre and Constance Le Grip made their complaint known in a letter sent on Tuesday to the leader of the Insoumise deputies, Mathilde Panot. "You cannot at the same time hold an anti-Zionist discourse, refuse to explicitly
condemn terrorist barbarism and continue to be represented in a study and friendship group that fights against anti-Semitism and makes the security of the State of Israel a non-negotiable imperative," reads the letter obtained by Franceinfo.
If the Renaissance deputies address Mathilde Panot directly, it is because she is the only one who can dismiss her deputies from their posts. Neither the President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, nor the presidents of the groups in question have the power to do so. As a result, the application is unlikely to succeed.
After Hamas' attacks on Israel on Saturday, Ersilia Soudais said on X: "#Gaza has been an open-air prison for a long time, to general indifference! Hatred attracts hatred, and some seem to discover that it is civilians who pay the price of war. More than words, justice is needed to make peace." The statement was unacceptable at a time when his camp has been accused of failing to clearly condemn the Hamas attacks, which killed at least 1200,<> people in Israel. The Seine-et-Marne MP had also invited Mariam Abou Daqqa, an activist from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an organisation considered terrorist by the European Union, to the screening of a documentary in November at the National Assembly. The invitation was finally cancelled by Yaël Braun-Pivet.
For his part, Aymeric Caron reacted sharply to the request of the Renaissance deputies on X: "Meanwhile the deputy Mathieu Lefèvre announces that he wants to exclude me from the France-Israel friendship group because I denounce the extreme right government of Netanyahu. They have completely lost their minds, at the very moment when we must collectively work for peace, looking at events with lucidity.
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