“Muslim in appearance”: researcher Pascal Boniface at the heart of a controversy after comments about Karim Bouamrane

“Muslim in appearance”: the controversy does not abate around the geopolitical researcher Pascal Boniface who thus described the mayor of Saint-Ouen Karim Bouamrane, a rising figure of the Socialist Party, attracting criticism from the main person concerned and from a part of the political class. Member of the wing of the PS opposed to the alliance with La France insoumise (LFI), Karim Bouamrane was himself indignant at being described as a Muslim “in appearance”, before the researcher recognized a ” awkward expression” and withdraws his message.

“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,” the mayor of Saint-Ouen, d of Moroccan origin and whose name had circulated for Matignon after the early legislative elections of July 7. 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.

What did the message deleted by Pascal Boniface say?

“Honestly, I wonder about this man who I don’t know personally. Is he an example of meritocracy? So bravo! Or exploited like an apparently Muslim who does not criticize Netanyahu and therefore benefits from a lot of media promotion “, wrote Pascal Boniface. Monday, October 21, the researcher withdrew his message, recognizing that “the expression is clumsy and gives rise to interpretations that are contrary to my thinking.”

While “maintaining 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 on the same social network, seeming to reproach the councilor to some extent in his condemnations of Israeli bombings in Gaza. The same criticism was addressed to Mr. Bouamrane by the rebellious MEP Rima Hassan, the latter accusing him of being “convinced of having done the job with a post (on Gaza) in one year”, relating to the bombings of Rafah in May. A caution that the entourage of the mayor of Saint-Ouen refutes.

Conference canceled in Dijon

Many leaders, most of them socialists or Macronists but also from the right, had strongly criticized the publication of Pascal Boniface before its withdrawal. The Macronist Minister of European Affairs Benjamin Haddad judged that “the assignment of identity is the opposite of our republican pact”.

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The city of Dijon and its mayor François Rebsamen, from the PS, announced the suspension of their collaboration with the Institute for International and Strategic Research (Iris), one of the main French centers of reflection on geopolitics, including Pascal Boniface is the founder and director. “The city of Dijon is attached to the values ​​of secularism and universalism,” wrote François Rebsamen on .

Former member of the Socialist Party, Pascal Boniface left it 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. Pascal Boniface also called on Sunday on X 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.