If the rebels' bill sparked a wave of criticism from all sides, controversy also arose on the left.
While the proposed law removing the offense of glorifying terrorism has sparked heated controversy in the political class since Saturday, the boss of LFI deputies Mathilde Panot said on Sunday that she wanted it “put back in the right place” in law by removing it from the Penal Code. “It turns out that before 2014, before the law which put the apology for terrorism in the Penal Code, it was in press law. And what we denounce is precisely that it is in the Penal Code and no longer in press law. So we are not repealing the offense of apologizing for terrorism, we are putting it back in press law.”explained Mathilde Panot on BFMTV.
“I find it incredible that it is explained everywhere that we are in the process of repealing the offense of glorifying terrorism”insisted the elected official from Val-de-Marne. If LFI sparked a wave of criticism from all sides, controversy also arose on the left since the first secretary of the Socialist Party Olivier Faure judged that it was enough to refine the matter “the definition” of the crime “to avoid deviations”. In their proposed law, the Insoumis ask “what democracy can still retain its name, when anti-terrorism methods are used to repress political activists, community activists, journalists or even trade unionists”.
“Nothing to do with our personal interests”
Among the examples cited is that of Mathilde Panot, interviewed in April by the Parisian judicial police regarding a press release published by her group on October 7, 2023, in which the Hamas attack in Israel had been described as “an armed offensive by Palestinian forces” in a “context of intensification of the Israeli occupation policy” of Palestinian territories. But table this bill “has nothing to do with our personal interests”assured the head of the LFI deputies on Sunday.
