The bill proposal, led by the EPR deputy for French people living abroad, Caroline Yadan, aiming to “fight against renewed forms of anti-Semitism,” will not be on the agenda of the Palais Bourbon this Thursday, April 2, after causing an uproar among parliamentarians.
The government caused a backlash from deputies on Wednesday, April 1, by considering advancing the examination of a divisive bill on anti-Semitism at the last minute, which will finally be scheduled for two weeks from now.
In the middle of the afternoon, the Minister of Relations with Parliament, Laurent Panifous, announced in the hemicycle that the inclusion of the bill on anti-Semitism from Deputy Caroline Yadan on the agenda was “a possibility,” as of Thursday at 3 pm.
The idea was to use the potentially freed up time due to the likely rejection of the highly sensitive constitutional reform of the status of New Caledonia.
The examination of this text is scheduled for Thursday at 11 am, but a motion of prior rejection is likely to be adopted, with the votes of the left and the National Rally. This would cut short the examination, theoretically freeing up the end of the week.
“Using the time ‘in the most reasonable manner'”
Therefore, Laurent Panifous had stated in the hemicycle, in the early afternoon on Wednesday, that the government wanted to use this potential time “in the most reasonable manner possible.” But the announcement of the unexpected addition of the text on anti-Semitism, which also faces strong opposition from the left, outraged the deputies.
“We are not robots (…), we do not change an agenda at the last minute,” said ecologist Sandra Regol.
The LR deputy Philippe Gosselin, rapporteur for the New Caledonia bill, even called the government’s intervention a “mistake” because it seemed to confirm the success of the rejection motion.
“There is blackmail on the rejection motion,” thundered Mathilde Panot, the leader of the rebellious deputies, who are in favor of this motion but very opposed to the text on anti-Semitism, considering that it would help to silence critics of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
“The agenda has never been changed ‘from the day before to the next day.'”
Even the president Yaël Braun-Pivet emphasized on the mic that in four years of presidency, the agenda had never been modified “from the day before to the next day.”
She interrupted the session and convened the presidents’ conference, including all the political group leaders, to discuss the organization of debates.
Upon resumption, she announced that “there will be no other text on the agenda for this week,” and invoked the need for “mutual respect” between Parliament and the government in front of journalists.
Caroline Yadan’s text remains on the agenda of the Assembly on April 16 and 17. It aims to respond to the “explosion of anti-Semitic acts” and its “renewed forms” since the unprecedented attack on October 7, 2023, by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Israeli soil. It broadens the crime of terrorism apology and creates a crime of incitement to the destruction of a state.
