The Joséphine-Baker primary school in Pantin in the Seine-Saint-Denis region is hosting an anomalous event on Thursday March 7th. Far from fairs and other school festivities, the Nous sommes Pantin collective and the Pantin-Palestine support committee have decided to organise an evening of “support for the Palestinian people” at the school. Discussions, testimonies, animations… The organisers even made sure to point out that children were welcome on this very political evening.
However, the initiative caused controversy. Several opposition MPs and parents of pupils have launched an online petition. They demand the “immediate cancellation of this evening on the school premises” and argue that holding it would “jeopardise the neutrality and secularism of the school”. So far, the petition has collected almost 800 signatures.
The socialist mayor of Pantin, Bertrand Kern, declared that the organisers’ request had been “duly” requested. In addition, the mayor told BFMTV that the Josephine-Baker school is “a public space of the city, available to all”, adding that “meetings are regularly organised by members of all political colours”.
However, the choice of a school as the venue for this evening in support of the Palestinian people is not the only problem. In particular, the initiative aims to raise money for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Middle East. However, UNRWA has been at the centre of a controversy for several months. Several employees of the UN organisation are accused by Israel of being involved in the massacres of October 7.
LR MP Geoffrey Carvalhinho from Pantin was strictly against this fundraising and recalled that France had suspended its payments to UNRWA for the first quarter of 2024. “I remind you that seventeen countries have also suspended their payments to the agency. And finally, I recall that the UN and the EU have launched investigations to clarify everything,” he added via the social network X. He concluded by saying: “We want peace and not division”.