Push for French MEP Rima Hassan to face inquiry over Gaza protest in Jordan

Newly elected left-wing French MEP Rima Hassan has come under fire for attending a pro-Gaza protest in the Jordanian capital Amman, leading to calls for an investigation. More than 50 centrist French MPs are pushing to have Ms Hassan's immunity lifted in Brussels so that she can be prosecuted for accusations of glorification of terrorism, which she denies. Some European countries have shown signs of exasperation over Israel's conduct of the war in Gaza, which has killed more than 40,200 people after a Hamas-led incursion on Israel killed about 1,200 on October 7. Ms Hassan was reported in the French magazine Le Point to have attended a pro-Hamas protest on Friday because slogans favourable to the group were chanted during the rally. A lawyer of Palestinian descent who was born a refugee in Syria, she is a controversial figure in France for her strong pro-Palestine views. She became an MEP for the first time in the European election in June and was one of the main figures in the campaign led by far-left France Unbowed leader Jean-Luc Melenchon. Three days after the publication of the article on Sunday, more than 50 MPs from President Emmanuel Macron's party, including government spokeswoman Prisca Thevenot, wrote to European Parliament President Roberta Metsola asking for Ms Hassan's immunity to be lifted. Ms Hassan, on a tour of Palestinian camps in Lebanon and Jordan for a personal artistic project on refugees, has since said that she cannot be held responsible for slogans chanted by other people in the weekly pro-Gaza Friday afternoon protest. She has described the accusations as "fake news". "This relentless media campaign has only one objective: to make my work on camps invisible," Ms Hassan wrote on X. The video, which she and a friend published on Instagram, appears to have been taken down, but was described by a journalist at Le Point as depicting an "extremist" rally. This judgment was made on the basis of pictures of assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh superimposed with an extract from the Quran and slogans such as "labaika ya Aqsa", a call to defend Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. The excerpt was described as often used by Islamists: "There are among the believers, men who were sincere in their commitment to God. Some of them have fulfilled their pledges with their lives, and others are still waiting their turn; they have not changed their commitment in the least." Thomas Pierret, senior researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), told The National it was difficult to judge the nature of the protest from these elements. "In the Jordanian context, a tribute to Haniyeh can be a reflection of an Islamist orientation or a simple nationalist reflex by virtue of which one celebrates assassinated Palestinian leaders regardless of their ideology," Mr Pierret said. "One thing is certain, neither the slogan nor the excerpt from the Quran quoted in the article are specific to Islamists." Jewish worshippers are prohibited from praying at Al Aqsa, the third-holiest site in Islam, according to an agreement between Israel and Jordan. Israeli settlers regularly storm the mosque with the support of far-right government ministers. Jordanian security forces have been increasingly clamping down on pro-Gaza protests in Jordan, which have been largely organised by the Muslim Brotherhood and people linked with the group. Leftists and Jordanian nationalists are also among the crowds, who usually are allowed limited assembly near the Israeli embassy. In their letter to the Paris prosecutor, the French centrists said Ms Hassan had been provocative with her "barely concealed support for the terrorist organisation Hamas" by taking part in an "Islamist and pro-terrorist demonstration". They alleged that she also threatened public figures who she believed were close to Israel. The accusations seem to be linked to a feud between Ms Hassan and right-wing French MEP Francois-Xavier Bellamy, who in July successfully delayed until September the vote for her election to the European Parliament human rights subcommittee, according to Euronews . At the time, she wrote on X : “For the moment, Francois-Xavier Bellamy and his little friends, close to the genocidal Israeli regime, sleep well at night. It will not last.” Mr Bellamy accused Ms Hassan of supporting Hamas's attacks against Israel in a media interview given in November. She has said that the Hamas attacks constituted war crimes but they did not excuse the Israeli response. The National has contacted Ms Metsola's office and Ms Hassan for comment.

Push for French MEP Rima Hassan to face inquiry over Gaza protest in Jordan

Leftist representative is target for controversy in France for her pro-Palestinian stance