Rima Hassan, a French-Palestinian legal scholar, led a long minute's silence on Saturday, March 16, in a hall at the conference center in the northern Paris suburb of Villepinte where La France Insoumise (LFI, radical left) was holding its first rally for the European elections. Hassan, seventh-placed on the party's list of candidates for the June 9 elections, appealed to the room: "The Palestinians are demanding one thing, to have what you all have, an identity card and a nationality."

While this position has now been embraced as a point of "pride" by LFI's leaders, the pro-Palestinian tone given to the list was not at all self-evident at the outset. In December 2023, when Hassan's name began to be floated within the party after she met with LFI founder Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the possibility of her running under the LFI banner already seemed in jeopardy. Rumor was that the party's top official, Manuel Bompard, felt that the movement had already demonstrated its commitment to the Palestinian cause.

For the previous three months, LFI's leadership had come under heavy criticism from its political opponents for having refused to describe Hamas as a "terrorist" group, following its attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Criticism came from its left-wing partners too, as the NUPES alliance broke up over this issue.

Another sticking point for Hassan's candidacy was that the leading Palestinian rights campaigner doesn't support the two-state solution – she backs a single, binational state. But a few days before the LFI list of candidates, led by MEP Manon Aubry, was finalized and presented on March 6, Aubry there was wiggle room to welcome Hassan.

Hassan's inclusion illustrates LFI's determination to position itself at the vanguard of the defense of Palestinians, alongside Palestinian advocacy groups. LFI is also taking advantage of the fact that the Communists are no longer as diligent in their support of the Palestinian cause as they once were.

"The ones who are always there are LFI. They're numerous, consistent and committed," noted Anne Tuaillon, president of the France-Palestine Solidarity Association (AFPS), which has long been close to the Communists. At the last demonstration organized by the National Collective for a Just and Lasting Peace between Palestinians and Israelis (CNPJDPI) on March 9, LFI, who signed the group's call to demonstrate, marched at the front of the procession. The Communists, who did not sign the call, were at the back.

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