French MP suspended for waving Palestinian flag

Parliament Speaker Yael Braun-Pivet condemned his “unacceptable” behavior and MPs voted to suspend him for two weeks and cut his parliamentary salary by half for a period of two months.

His suspension came on the day Spain, Ireland and Norway formally recognised Palestinian statehood in a coordinated decision that infuriated Israel.

This means that 145 of the 193 UN member states have now recognized a Palestinian state.

But no member of the Group of Seven industrialized nations – including France, Britain and the United States – has done so.

French President Emmanuel Macron said in February that recognizing a Palestinian state was no longer “taboo.”

But Prime Minister Gabriel Attal evaded a question from another LFI MP in the House of Commons on Tuesday about whether France would soon join its European allies.

The recent Gaza war has raised tensions in France, the country with the largest Jewish community after Israel and the United States and the largest Muslim community in Europe.

The war began when the Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7. According to an AFP news agency count based on official Israeli figures, more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, were killed.

The militants also took 252 hostages, 121 of whom are still in the Gaza Strip. According to the army, 37 of them are dead.

According to the Health Ministry of the Hamas-controlled area, at least 36,096 people, mostly civilians, were killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza.

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