“Muslim in appearance”: geopolitical researcher Pascal Boniface attracted strong criticism on Sunday by using this expression in commentary on a video concerning the socialist mayor of Saint-Ouen, Karim Bouamrane. On Monday, the founder and director of the Institute for International and Strategic Research (IRIS), one of the main French centers of reflection on geopolitics, withdrew his comments.
In the France 2 program “Quelle époque” on Saturday, Karim Bouamrane deplored the importation into France of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “for electoral purposes”, repeating the criticism made to LFI, in particular during the campaign for the European elections from June 9.
“Honestly, I wonder about this man who I don’t know personally. Is he an example of meritocracy? So well done! Or exploited in the manner of an apparently Muslim who does not criticize Netanyahu and therefore benefits from big media promotion,” wrote Pascal Boniface on X.
On Monday, the researcher withdrew his message, acknowledging in a new tweet that “the expression muslim in appearance is clumsy and gives rise to interpretations that are contrary to my thinking.” I maintain “the fundamental questions that I ask in the face of the silence concerning an unacceptable situation in Gaza, where the risk of genocide is more evident every day,” he adds.
“This is how a researcher qualifies me and definitively disqualifies himself”
But the controversy has started. A rising figure in the PS and member of the wing of the party opposed to the alliance with France Insoumise (LFI), Karim Bouamrane was himself indignant at being described as an “appearing” Muslim.
“After 30 years of commitment to the left, elected to the Republic since 1995, this is how a researcher qualifies me and definitively disqualifies himself. The fight against essentialization continues! Long live the Republic! Long live France! », wrote on X the mayor of Saint-Ouen, of Moroccan origin and whose name had circulated for Matignon after the legislative elections of July 7.
Many officials, most of them socialists or Macronists, reacted strongly to its publication before its withdrawal. The city of Dijon thus declared in a press release to suspend its collaboration with IRIS and cancel the program of the Dijon Internationals, which were to be held for two days at the end of November in partnership with the center for reflection on geopolitics. Pascal Boniface’s statements “are opposed to the values of inclusion and mutual respect that the city of Dijon defends,” writes the town hall.
“No one should be assigned to a supposed religious or cultural identity”
“No one should be assigned to a supposed religious or cultural identity. No one should prejudge what a Muslim, a Jew, a Christian or an atheist may think. Even less to judge that a position can make one muslim in appearance », the first secretary of the PS, Olivier Faure, protested against X.
The Macronist Minister of European Affairs Benjamin Haddad, for his part, judged that “the assignment of identity is the opposite of our republican pact”.
Pascal Boniface is a former member of the Socialist Party, which he left after a controversy linked to the publication of one of his notes in 2001 devoted to the party’s positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The founder of IRIS also called on X on Sunday another socialist elected official from Paris, Lamia El Aaraje, to ask her what she thinks “of the continuation of the bombings on Gaza”. “Would he have done it if my name had been Colette Durand? “, she asked.
