Lyon: mayor cancels conference with Franco-Palestinian Salah Hamouri

Grégory Doucet, the mayor of Lyon, had initially defended his decision to invite the Franco-Palestinian lawyer.

mo12345lemonde with AFP

The situation had become too difficult to hold. The mayor of Lyon, Grégory Doucet (Europe Ecologie-les Verts) finally canceled a round table on Monday 30 January in the presence of the Franco-Palestinian lawyer Salah Hamouri. This decision was made to “ensure concord” in his city in the face of “very strong tensions” aroused by this event, justified the councilor.

The conference entitled “Thirty years after the signing of the Oslo agreements, looks on Palestine”, was scheduled for Wednesday 1 er February at the Town Hall. The presence of Salah Hamouri, whom Israel considers as a “terrorist”, as well as the title of the conference were perceived as a “provocation” by several local actors. Salah Hamouri was expelled on December 18 by Israel, after several months of detention.

“I do it in my role as mayor who must ensure civil peace and harmony in the city,” said Grégory Doucet during a press point, stressing that he regretted not being able to “guarantee serenely Freedom of expression “in a context marked by an outbreak of violence in Israel.

Risks of public order disorders

On Sunday, one of her assistants, Florence Delaunay, had to leave a ceremony devoted to the memory of the liberation of the Auschwitz camp after being hooted by the public, noted a correspondent from the France-Presse agency. “There was very strong verbal violence, a form of intimidation (…) and I have to do everything so that violence suffered there is not imported here”, in Lyon, underlined Mr. Doucet on Monday.

Due to the “risk of public order disorders”, the Rhône prefecture had put the town hall into notice to cancel the conference with Salah Hamouri in a letter Monday morning.

The Grand Rabbi of Lyon, Daniel Dahan, announced on Friday that he withdrew from an interconfessional group created in 2002 by the town hall of Lyon to promote “well living together”, saying that I could not “give [to give [to give [to give [to give [to give [ Its] moral surety to people who, instead of promoting peace in the city, will quite the contrary stir up community tensions “.

Last week, the mayor of Lyon defended in the columns of the newspaper Le Progrès The organization of this “focus on Palestinian territory” and its decision to invite the Franco-Palestinian lawyer, who has lived in France since his expulsion from Israel, deemed “contrary to the law” by Paris. “He is a French citizen who has the right to express themselves,” he said on Monday.

“We will continue to work to find the right formulas that will allow us to put on the table the subject of the situation in the Middle East thirty years after the Oslo agreements,” said Mr. Doucet, recalling that He was “aligned with France’s position on a two -state solution”.