Le Figaro Nantes
If the "great civic march" against anti-Semitism, initiated by Yaël Braun-Pivet and Gérard Larcher, scheduled for this Sunday in Paris, is stirring up controversy among the political class, the same is true of its Nantes version. In the sixth city of France, as in many others of France, a rally is planned at 15pm that day in front of the prefecture of Loire-Atlantique at the call of the Association of Mayors of France (AMF). A dozen left-wing and environmental organizations have indicated that they will not take part and prefer to organize their own event.
The reason given: the announced presence of the RN - and that of Reconquest - in the ranks of the participants. "It's inconceivable to march with them. We need to get out of the current confusion and the instrumentalization of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," Margot Medkour, a member of Nantes en commun, an independent political movement close to LFI, told Le Figaro. "Over there (in Paris, editor's note), they march with the anti-Semitic far right, here we march with our values!" wrote La France insoumise de Loire-Atlantique on its account X (formerly Twitter).
Read alsoNear Nantes, a mayor threatened in the City Hall by a man armed with a knife
General confusion
As a result, at the initiative of the ten organizations, a second rally is planned from 16 p.m. starting from Place Graslin. According to the slogan, it will be a "march against anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and all forms of racism". Margot Medkour defends an event with a "clearer basis" aimed at denouncing the resurgence of anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and racist acts in the country.
In the statement announcing the march, the organizers wrote that they did not want to "fall into the traps of the far right," including turning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a "religious conflict." They also point to the "trauma" caused by the October 7 attacks in which civilians, "in no way the opponents of the Palestinians," were targeted, while mentioning that this "trauma cannot justify a response that ignores the history of Palestine and has become a pretext for reviving a war on terror led by the West."
*Nantes en commun, La France insoumise Loire-Atlantique, Les Écologistes, La Gauche écosocialiste, Association de Veille écologiste et citoyenne Nantes, NPA Nantes, the collective "Culture en lutte", Fakir, Révolution écologique pour le vivant.