Jean-Luc Mélenchon did eventually hold a short rally on Thursday, April 18, in a square in the working-class district of Moulins, in Lille, in front of around 300 to 400 people (1,000, according to his party). After the president of the University of Lille had canceled the conference on Palestine Mélenchon was due to take part in at the invitation of the Libre Palestine (Free Palestine) student association, the leader of La France Insoumise (LFI) was hoping to fall back on a private venue in Lille. But the local prefect, Bertrand Gaume, opposed this solution by banning it, arguing that the safety of participants would not be guaranteed, that police forces were mobilized for the Lille - Aston Villa match, and that a commemoration of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising was scheduled for that same Thursday evening at the Lille synagogue.
No police officers were dispatched to the outdoor square where Mélenchon eventually made his speech. But the audience wasn't convinced of the prefect's arguments. "It's all pretexts. It's pure censorship!" said Corentin, a literature student, "What are we doing? Can we still talk about freedom of expression in France?" Abdelkader, 77, was similarly angered: "I am incensed that all doors are being closed to them like this. It's scandalous that freedom of expression is limited to some and not to others, especially on a subject as dramatic as Gaza." Abdelkader said he was not particularly sympathetic to LFI, but came to hear Rima Hassan, a French-Palestinian activist running as one of the party's candidates in the European elections.
Olivier, an industrial designer in his fifties, was equally stunned by the "political and media shift that smacks more and more of censorship." Hassan made similar arguments when she attacked the censorship of which her party claimed to be a victim. Taking the microphone first, she denounced "the weapon of those who have already lost. The politics of those who have failed," before confiding, "I literally feel hunted down not for what I say but for what I am." She concluded a brief speech by quoting Stéphane Hessel (1917-2013), a defender of Palestinians's rights: "Indignez-vous!" ("Be outraged!")
'He's gone to bed!'
In stark contrast to Wednesday's rally, held a few kilometers away in Roubaix, Mélenchon went into overdrive, delivering an extremely violent speech. While many Socialists had spoken up during the day to defend LFI and contest the prefect's ban, the three-time presidential candidate lashed out at the Socialist MP Jérôme Guedj, comparing him to "a coward of the human variety we all know, the informer, those who like to whisper in the master's ear." Guedj had expressed his reservations about Libre Palestine's logo, a map showing the West Bank, Gaza and Israel indistinctly in the same territory. He had not, however, called for the conference to be canceled. "He didn't ask for the ban, he merely denounced," Mélenchon retorted, making dubious insinuations.
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