a cracist comment during a debate on immigration in the French National Assembly has stirred up the country’s politics after a right-wing deputy would cry out “let him go back to Africa” while a parliamentarian intervened black.
The aggrieved deputy was Carlos Mertens Bilongo member of the left-wing party La Francia Insumisa, who spoke in the National Assembly to denounce the situation of the more than 1,000 migrants rescued by NGOs and stranded in the middle of the Mediterranean after the closure of the ports by Italy.
[La desgraciada historia de Linda, de 4 años: sus 26 horas en un bote de Túnez a Lampedusa sin su familia]
It was at that moment that the cry of “let them go back to Africa” or “let them go back to Africa” (the French pronunciation is almost identical), at which point many of the deputies of the Assembly raised their eyebrows. The author of this act was Gregory of Fournas, far-right deputy from Marine Le Pen’s party, Agrupación Nacional.
?⚡️ Lords of the question du député LFI-#NUPES Carlos Martens Bilongo sur l’immigration, celui-ci to été interrupted by a parlementaire du Rassemblement national lui hurlant “Retourne en Afrique !”.
Consequently, the séance à été suspendue. #DirectAN pic.twitter.com/dL4jGUZyjj
— Elections 2022 (@2022Elections) November 3, 2022
They ask to withdraw the record
This racist insult, regardless of whether it was directed at the French deputy or at the migrants rescued in the Mediterranean, generated a violent verbal diatribe that forced the President of the Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivot, a adjourn.
“It’s really sad to be insulted. It’s embarrassing”, lamented Mertens on his way out of the plenary session. “There is no room for racism in a democracy,” said the prime minister, Elizabeth Bornewho requested that the procedure be initiated to sanction and even withdraw the act of deputy to the author of the comment.
[Este es el vídeo en el que la BBC basa su acusación de arrastre de muertos del lado español al marroquí]
“I meant the migrants”
Gregoire de Fournas has assured that in reality what he said is “let them go back to Africa”, a comment that according to him “has been manipulated” by the deputies of La Francia Insumisa.
De Fournas has insisted that his comment did not refer to Mertens, but to “immigrants from the boats”, and criticized the left-wing deputies for seeking “sterile polemics”. “I’m not going to apologize for something I haven’t done,” he added.
Marine Le Pen came out to defend her deputy and he stressed that De Fournas “was referring to the migrants transported by the NGO boats”, considering that a “gross controversy” has been created.
Instead, the French Minister of Transport, Clement Beaunepointed out that the varnish that, according to him, the extreme right has put on “cracks. “The extreme right is still the extreme right, racist and brutal” and showed his “full support” for Carlos Mertens Bilongo.
