AFP,
Paris
Over 50 town halls in France were flying the Palestinian flag yesterday in defiance of an interior ministry warning not to do so ahead of the recognition of a Palestinian state by President Emmanuel Macron.
Macron is due to recognise a Palestinian state on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, following up on a pledge he made in the summer that angered Israel.
But hardline Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who is also leader of the right-wing Republicans Party, issued a circular last week ordering prefects -- the top local state-appointed officials -- to oppose the flying of the flags.
“The principle of neutrality in public service prohibits such displays,” the interior ministry said, adding that any decisions by mayors to fly the Palestinian flag should be referred to courts.
The standoff has underlined the social and political tension in France in the wake of Israel’s war on the Palestinians. France is home to western Europe’s largest Jewish population, at around half a million people, as well as a significant Muslim community sensitive to the plight of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
The Socialist Party (PS) mayors of Nantes and Rennes, big cities in western and northwestern France, flew the flags outside their city halls to mark the occasion.
“Our responsibility is to reject silence and to do everything in our power, here and now, to put an end to the horror,” Rennes Mayor Nathalie Appere said in a statement.
In total 52 town halls out of 34,875 across the country were flying the flag, the interior ministry said.
The northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis also raised the Palestinian flag at a ceremony attended by PS leader Olivier Faure, who opposed Retailleau’s order.
“This flag is not the flag of Hamas, it is the flag of women and men who also have the right to freedom and self-determination,” he said.
Foreign Minster Jean-Noel Barrot appeared wary of being drawn into the debate on what he described a “historic day for peace”.
“I do not want... it to be used for political polemics, to divide us at a time when, more than ever, we need to be united to be strong,” he told TF1 television.