The presence of the Franco-Palestinian lawyer Salah Hamouri in a conference on the Oslo agreements scheduled for Wednesday, without Israeli counterpoint, had triggered the unanimous reprobation of Jewish institutions and opposition elected officials.
by Richard Schittly (Lyon, correspondent)
placed in an inextricable situation, the ecologist mayor of Lyon, Grégory Doucet, finally gave up organizing a conference on the 30 years of the Oslo agreements, scheduled for Wednesday, February 1, under the aegis of the municipality, to which was to participate in the Franco-Palestinian lawyer Salah Hamouri, in conditions which caused unanimous reprobation of all Jewish bodies in the Lyon region, and the harsh criticisms of his political opponents. “The resurgence of violence in the Middle East makes me fear a form of importation of the conflict here. My priority is to ensure the safety of the inhabitants of this city,” said Grégory Doucet (Europe Ecology -The green, EELV), from its office of the town hall, Monday, January 30 in the morning. Visibly destabilized by the controversy, the elected official invoked “the role of mayor who must ensure civil peace” to justify his decision, while expressing his regret for not being able to “guarantee freedom of expression”.
One hour before this announcement, the mayor had received a formal notice from the prefect delegated for the defense and security of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, requesting the cancellation of the conference, for risk of troubles at the Public order, due to predictable demonstrations and confrontations.
This outcome follows a succession of tensions. Sunday morning, Florence Delaunay, her assistant in charge of rights and memory, was copiously hooked when she started her speech, on the occasion of the commemoration of the release of the extermination camps. A man arose from the large crowd and took over the microphone. “I do not give you the authorization to talk about my mother!” Shouts Patrick Natan, when the elected official had just mentioned the name of Ida Natan, former deportee, died in June 2022 at the age of 102 years.
The assistant left Place Bellecour in an unprecedented scene, which recalls the taking to the part of Charles Millon by Simone Lagrange, victim of Klaus Barbie, before the Memorial of the children of Izieu (Ain) in 1998, after The alliance of the president of the Rhône-Alpes region with the National Front (which has become a national rally). This is to say how much the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, mixed with the memory of the Shoah, is a subject highly sensitive to the emotional springs that Grégory Doucet did not anticipate in the resistance capital.
“It’s obviously oriented”
The Grand Rabbi regional resigned from the municipal body Concorde et Solidarité, created in 2002 following a degradation of the synagogue in the Duchère district of Lyon. “I cannot give my moral surety to people who, instead of promoting peace in the city, will quite the contrary stir up community tensions,” said Daniel Dahan, in a statement on Friday, January 27. “I do not understand why he does not bother, he should make amends,” commented the former right mayor of Lyon Michel Noir on Sunday. At the origin of the Center for the History of Resistance and Deportation (CHRD), the ex-elected was on the verge of tears after the incidents of Place Bellecour. “Confuse the work of memory and public expression on a geopolitical conflict, it is not normal”, regrets the entourage of Grégory Doucet.
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