France announces plans to break up major anti-Israel activist group

France’s interior minister says he is working to ban Urgence Palestine, calling it part of a campaign targeting radical Islamists.

By World Israel News Staff

The French government has taken aim at radical Islamist groups, French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau announced on Wednesday, with plans to ban an anti-Israel, pro-Hamas activist group formed after the Gaza invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023.

Retailleau told CNews/Europe 1 that his office has launched proceedings to dissolve the Urgence Palestine organization, an anti-Israel activist group that he accused of harboring radical Islamist views.

“Islamism is an ideology that tries to exploit a religion. There is a disfigurement of faith,” Retailleau said, adding that France must “hit the Islamists.”

The French interior minister distinguished Islamist anti-Israel agitation from the Palestinian cause as a whole, which he called “just.”

“We must not disfigure the just cause of the Palestinians,” he said, adding that “many of our Muslim compatriots profess a faith that is perfectly compatible with the values of the Republic.”

Couching its agenda in far-left rhetoric, including allegations of “colonial oppression” and “imperialist wars,” Urgence Palestine has accused Israel of genocide in the Gaza Strip and advocated for a boycott of businesses linked to Israel as part of the larger Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.

The group has responded to the French government’s efforts to dissolve it, accusing the Macron government of embracing “a policy of repression aligned with the slogans of the French far-right and the Israeli government.”

“Denouncing genocide will never be a crime. Resisting injustice is not a crime. Demanding freedom for the Palestinian people is not a violent extremist demand. On the contrary: it is a human imperative,” the group stated.

In addition to targeting Urgence Palestine, Retailleau has announced plans to dissolve Lyon Populaire (The Young Guard), which critics describe as a far-right group.

Founded in 2019, Lyon Populaire’s activists have frequently clashed with left-wing demonstrators and pro-Palestinian activists.

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