Le Figaro Nantes
The first Palestinian flag painted on the steps of an alley in the center of Nantes in mid-February went relatively unnoticed.
The one drawn in March on the steps of the Butte Sainte-Anne, visible on the other side of the Loire, a little less.
On Wednesday, the municipality indicated to Le
Figaro
that at this stage, it was not planning to have them cleaned.
Enough to provoke a reaction, especially since other cities with the same socialist sensibility as the Nantes councilor have for their part decided to make them disappear (Marseille, Paris, etc.).
This position immediately provoked a reaction from the local right-wing opposition.
“The situation is
complex
and does not allow a local authority to take the liberty of such support.
Once again,
Johanna Rolland
spares her extreme left Nupes
,” reacted Guillaume Richard, municipal councilor.
“Not cleaning up is opening the door to activists from all causes and communities taking over public space,”
added Foulques Chombart de Lauwe, elected on the same side.
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“Political and moral fault”
Accustomed to criticism from the opposition, Mayor Johanna Rolland did not react to these comments published on X. On the other hand, she seems to have been stung by that of her opponent Laurence Garnier, municipal councilor and LR senator.
“The Mayor of Nantes commits a political and moral error by choosing to leave the Palestinian flag on the steps of the Butte Sainte-Anne
,” the former municipal candidate wrote in a press release sent Thursday at 4:45 p.m.
Without contesting
“neither the suffering of the Palestinian people, nor the horror of the war caused by the pogrom of last October 7”
, Laurence Garnier believes that
“the Mayor of Nantes is the Mayor of all the people of Nantes.
She does not have to prioritize suffering.
She does not have to try to please certain Nantes residents close to the Palestinian cause, by offending all those who are of the Jewish faith and are also hurt in their flesh.
Its role is to guarantee respect for everyone in our city
.
She recalls that this act
“which degrades public space”
is illegal, and calls for a clean-up.
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“Instrumentalization of suffering”
Less than two and a half hours later, the city of Nantes sent a reaction regretting the birth of a
“controversy that Laurence Garnier is trying to launch”
:
“engaging in such an instrumentalization of suffering is certainly not appropriate. height of the stakes and the dramatic situation in Gaza
,” writes Johanna Rolland.
Once again, she expresses her position on the conflict.
“As much as I condemned the appalling terrorist act of Hamas on October 7, the indiscriminate hyperviolence ordered by the Netanyahu Government is upsetting and revolting
. ”
Johanna Rolland, who prides herself on
“not having variable geometry indignation”
, defends
“the coexistence of two states which must live in peace and security.
The massacre of civilians must stop and the unbearable humanitarian crisis facing Gaza
must be addressed
.”
For the elected official, also first delegated national secretary of the PS, the flag symbolizes an “
immediate ceasefire to stop the massacre of innocent civilians in Gaza”.
And
“Hamas is not the Palestinian people.”
In her press release sent Thursday at 7:05 p.m., she also took care to recall that in October, she had the Israeli flag lit up on the Graslin theater.
It lasted an evening.
Before voting a few days later for a support grant to an association which refused to describe the attacks of October 7 as “terrorist”.