Reading them, it is the principle of
“fairness”
which led these 26 Nupes deputies to write to Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), this Tuesday.
French elected officials, from La France insoumise (LFI) and Europe Écologie-Les Verts (EELV), demand that sanctions be taken
“against the State of Israel for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games »
.
Not, they note, that they support the
“principle of punishing athletes or artists for the acts of a government for which they are not responsible”
.
But they say they do not understand that such sanctions were taken by the IOC against Russia – after the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 – and not against Israel.
“We ask you to apply to Israel, during the next Olympic Games, the same sanctions as to Russia and Belarus
,” they implore in this letter consulted by
Le Figaro
.
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According to them, the Jewish state is guilty of even more serious evils than Vladimir Putin's Russia.
“In Ukraine, a UN report published
last November reported more than 10,000 civilians killed, including 560 children, in just under two years of conflict.
In comparison, in Gaza, after “only” four months of bombings and ground intervention, the number of Palestinian dead and missing is around 40,000, mainly civilians among whom the majority are children and women, while 70,000 injured are counted, including many child amputees”
, defend the 26 left-wing deputies.
They speak of
"war crimes of an unprecedented scale"
, which in their eyes cannot be reduced to
"a defensive action on the part of countries victim of a terrorist attack on October 7".
No chance of success
Prominent among the signatories is the related LFI deputy Aymeric Caron, who was the first to demand that Israeli athletes parade under a neutral banner at the Paris Olympics.
Now, 22 other deputies from his group support him by initialing this letter, including François Ruffin, Ersilia Soudais, Louis Boyard, as well as David Guiraud and Danièle Obono, who have both recently distinguished themselves with polemical comments on the conflict in the Middle East.
Note that MP Adrien Quatennens, who defended this approach on RTL last week, did not wish to sign, just like executives Mathilde Panot and Manuel Bompard.
The Insoumis are joined by three environmentalist deputies: Aurélien Taché, Marie-Charlotte Garin and Sabrina Sebaihi.
A member of the IOC contacted by
Le Figaro
assures that this request has no chance of succeeding.
“Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the war in the Middle East are in no way comparable
,” he says.
This source recalls in particular that Russia had violated the Olympic truce by invading Crimea four days after the end of the Sochi Olympic Games in 2014.
“If you reject our request, please communicate to us the arguments for the refusal
,” warn the French elected officials. in their mail to the international organization.
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The founder of LFI, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, did not comment on possible sanctions against Israeli athletes.
Contacted, he did not respond immediately.
However, during a meeting in Rennes last December, he demanded that economic sanctions be taken by the European Union against Israel along the lines of those adopted against Russia.
“It seems that economic sanctions bring the violent to reason, is that what was done against Russia?
“So we must ask for economic sanctions against the government of the State of Israel
,” argued the rebellious leader.