“Muslim in appearance”: the controversy does not abate around geopolitical researcher Pascal Boniface who thus described the mayor of Saint-Ouen Karim Bouamrane, a rising figure in 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 (suburb) wrote on Sunday on Parisian), 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.
“Honestly, I wonder about this man that 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.
On Monday, the researcher withdrew his message, recognizing that “the expression + appearance Muslim + is clumsy and gives rise to interpretations that are contrary to my thinking.”
“I wanted to challenge him, I perhaps did not use the right words to make myself understood, but every voice counts to call for a ceasefire” in Gaza, he further justified in a video published Monday, appearing to reproach the city councilor for a certain extent in his condemnations of Israeli bombings in Gaza.
The same criticism was addressed to Mr. Bouamrane by Insoumise 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.
“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 judge that a position could make them a +Muslim appearance+”, PS First Secretary Olivier Faure protested against X.
The Macronist Minister of European Affairs Benjamin Haddad judged that “the assignment of identity is the opposite of our republican pact”.
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, of which Mr. Boniface is the founder and director.
“The city of Dijon is attached to the values of secularism and universalism,” M. Rebsamen wrote on Iris.
The metropolis of Nantes also announced that the researcher would “no longer be associated” with the next editions of Géopolitiques de Nantes, another event bringing together various round tables organized in partnership with Iris.
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 continued bombings on Gaza”. “Would he have done it if my name had been Colette Durand?” she asked.
