According to the Jerusalem post, French lawmaker Thomas Portes has come under fire after abandoning the pro-Palestinian “Global Sumud Flotilla” and flying to Lebanon, where he met with senior figures of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a group banned as a terrorist organization by the US, EU, Canada and Japan.
Portes, a member of the left-wing La France Insoumise party and a longtime critic of Israel, left the flotilla bound for Gaza on September 19 citing “personal reasons and family emergencies.” Yet just days later, on September 26, he posted photos and videos on X (formerly Twitter) from Beirut, where he met PFLP politburo leader Marwan Abdel-Al at the Mar Elias refugee camp and paid tribute at sites including the Sabra and Chatila camps.
During the visit, Portes quoted his PFLP hosts as saying: “It is not the occupier who will grant us a state, but the resistance and the sacrifices that will wrest it from them. We rely first on our own people, then on our allies, and also on the peoples of the world who are mobilizing against their complicit governments.”
The revelation drew sharp condemnation from French Jewish politician Shannon Seban. “I am ashamed that my department of Seine-Saint-Denis is represented by a deputy who boasts about his ties to terrorists,” Seban wrote. “This trip to Lebanon has nothing of a ‘personal’ or ‘private’ visit: it is an assumed political trip, marked by meetings with figures of international terrorism. Unacceptable.”
Portes has previously courted controversy, alleging that Israel “enabled October 7 to justify the genocide of the Palestinian people,” and declaring in 2024 that “Israeli athletes are not welcome at the Olympic Games in Paris.”
His latest trip has renewed debate in France over the limits of political activism and the risk of legitimizing groups designated as terrorists by much of the international community. See, More, Here>>>>
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