La France Insoumise MP Sébastien Delogu waves a Palestinian national flag during a session of questions to the government at the Assemblée Nationale, in Paris on May 28, 2024. (AFP photo)
Paris, May 29 (RHC)-- A French lawmaker has been suspended after he held up a Palestinian flag in the lower chamber during a heated debate over whether France should recognize Palestinian statehood.
Sebastien Delogu, a member of parliament for the France Unbowed (LFI) party from the southern city of Marseille, was suspended by the parliament on Tuesday. Delogu stood up with the Palestinian flag during questions to the government.
Parliament speaker Yael Braun-Pivet called it unacceptable behavior, and lawmakers voted to suspend Delogu for two weeks and cut his parliamentary allowance by half for two months. Delogu made a V-sign for victory and left the lower chamber making, as some other French lawmakers inside applauded and celebrated his suspension.
His suspension came on the day Spain, Ireland and Norway formally recognized a Palestinian state, deepening the Israeli regime’s isolation. In a coordinated attempt to exert added international pressure on the regime to stop its genocidal campaign in the besieged Gaza Strip, the three major Western European nations on Tuesday joined dozens of countries that have already recognized a Palestinian state.
The joint declaration had already been announced the previous week. The trio is the first major Western powers to officially recognize Palestine.
Their move brings to 145 out of the 193 UN member states that have recognized a Palestinian state.
But no member of the Group of Seven industrial powers -- including France, Britain and the United States -- have done so.
French President Emmanuel Macron said in February that recognizing a Palestinian state was no longer "taboo." On Tuesday, however, he clarified those comments, saying: "I am totally prepared to recognize a Palestinian state -- but this recognition must come at a useful moment."
"I will not do a recognition based on emotion," he said.
Meanwhile, a group of deputies from the Five Star Movement showed Palestinian and peace flags on Tuesday during a discussion on the Middle East crisis in the Chamber of Deputies, where the movement also requested that the Italian government recognize the State of Palestine.
"We should never be afraid to recognize a community's right to rally around a flag" says Riccardo Ricciardi, an MP from the Five Stars Movement.
The Palestinian flag flew outside the Irish parliament building in Dublin on Tuesday as Ireland formally recognized Palestinian statehood, a move also carried out on Tuesday by Spain and Norway.
The Irish government has said it agreed to establish full democratic relations between Dublin and Ramallah.
Israel’s barbarous campaign in Gaza began in early October. It has now driven virtually 80 percent of the population of 2.3 million from their homes. The regime’s savagery has caused considerably vast destruction in towns and cities.
Israel has also killed at least 36,050 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in Gaza since October 7, 2023.
