French Parliament on Tuesday, May 28, suspended a left-wing lawmaker for two weeks after he held up a Palestinian flag during a heated debate over whether France should recognize Palestinian statehood.
Sébastien Delogu, a member of Parliament for the radical La France Insoumise (LFI) party from the southern city of Marseille, stood up with the flag during questions to the government.
Parliament speaker Yaël Braun-Pivet denounced what she called his "inadmissible" behavior, and lawmakers voted to suspend him for two weeks and cut his parliamentary allowance by half for two months.
His suspension came on the day Spain, Ireland and Norway formally recognized Palestinian statehood in a coordinated decision that has infuriated Israel. Their move brings to 145 out of the 193 UN member states that have recognized a Palestinian state. But no member of the Group of Seven industrial powers – including France, the United Kingdom and the United States – have done so.
French President Emmanuel Macron in February said recognizing a Palestinian state was no longer "taboo." But Prime Minister Gabriel Attal in the lower house on Tuesday dodged a question from another LFI member of Parliament about whether France would soon join its European allies in doing so.