Paris stands against islamophobia amid Gaza conflict tensions
FRANCE-After a judge approved their rally, a throng of about 2,000 people demonstrated in Paris on Sunday 19 May 2024, against racism, Islamophobia, and violence against children. In response to the tensions sparked by Israel’s assault on Hamas in Gaza, demonstration bans have been increasingly common in France in recent months. Authorities have outlawed several pro-Palestinian protests and public meetings in a nation with sizable Muslim and Jewish communities, citing the possibility of antisemitic violence and hate crimes.
Parisians United Against Islamophobia?
From the multicultural Barbes neighborhood, the demonstrators marched peacefully in the direction of Place de la Republique. Many people yelled slogans in remembrance of Nahel, a 17-year-old of North African heritage who was shot and killed by police last year during a traffic check. The march’s organizers compared French police brutality to the Gaza War in their announcement, leading Paris police chief Laurent Nunez to tell broadcaster BFM TV that he first decided to forbid the event because he believed it would endanger public order.
In July 2014, there were many protests in France against Israel throughout the Gaza War at the time. Several thousand demonstrators disobeyed a restriction on demonstrating in Barbes on July 19, 2014, and the event quickly spiraled into hours-long violent altercations. According to a study by the Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), after the October 7 Hamas massacre in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,200 people, the majority of whom were civilians, and the kidnapping of 253 others to Gaza, antisemitic incidents in France have almost doubled.
How Do Parisians mobilize against the Islamophobia crisis?
According to CRIF, which cited data from the French interior ministry and a French-Jewish security monitor, there were 1,676 antisemitic incidents in 2023 as opposed to 436 in the previous year. Almost 60% of those incidents involved acts of physical assault, threats of violence, or hostile gestures.
The greatest Muslim and Jewish populations in Europe are found in France, while exact numbers are unavailable because religious identification is not included in the national census. After demonstrators gathered in front of the Sorbonne University in Paris and in the main hall, voicing their anger over the Gaza conflict, administrators decided to close the main building on Monday. This is the latest indication that similar protests are spreading from American institutions, as students at the prestigious Sciences Po university in Paris decided to put off similar demonstrations.
Is Paris Witnessing a Surge in Anti-Islamic Sentiment?
Human Rights Watch and five other French and international human rights organizations launched a class action lawsuit against the French government in 2021, requesting changes that would put a stop to the police’s systematic use of ethnic profiling. However, the French government still maintains that there is institutional racism in its police forces. The French government lost a significant chance to halt discriminatory police practices by not addressing the practice of racial and ethnic profiling by police in its most recent Action Plan on Anti-Racism. This included the need for police personnel to record demographic information from stops.
As per uk.news.yahoo.com, The administrative court in Paris dismissed that argument in a swift ruling. We should and can fight and mobilize for the protection of all children, declared Yessa Belkgodja, one of the march organizers, applauding the court’s ruling. According to hrw.org, According to international experts and the European Union, mandating this kind of documentation and gathering de-identified data on race and ethnicity will enable policymakers and campaigners to more accurately measure and address these instances of systemic racism. Nonetheless, the French government still forbids this kind of data collecting, impeding openness and weakening remedies.
Call to action: Boycott Pairs Olympics 2024
The murder of Nahel ought to have marked a turning point for France, showing that things cannot continue as they are and that France is engaged in a worldwide conversation about the ways in which policing perpetuates and exacerbates larger patterns of discriminatory society. Inform prospective attendees that the French government is spying on them using AI surveillance systems, compromising their privacy.
Boycott olympics 2024 in response to French police brutality and violations of human rights in order to strongly pressure the French government to put an end to these linked concerns. Security is the main point in organizing a best event from which France is not performing well.
The Paris Olympics should be boycotted due to unsafe places for visitors and racism issues.
Protesters who voiced their dissatisfaction and demanded reform were primarily dismissed by policymakers as violent “rioters,” illustrating a systemic failure to acknowledge legitimate grievances.
