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‘Go back to Africa’: French MP banned after racist outburst in parliament
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| Contributor | IndyGeorgia |
| Last Edited | IndyGeorgia Nov 04, 2022 06:51pm |
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| Category | News |
| Author | Kim Willsher |
| News Date | Friday, November 4, 2022 02:45:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | France’s Assemblée Nationale has banned a far-right MP from parliament for two weeks for a racist outburst after he shouted “Go back to Africa” when a black member of the lower house was speaking about migrants.
Grégoire de Fournas, a member of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN), or National Rally, will also lose half his salary for two months. He said he was not referring to the MP, but to migrants.
The house erupted with outrage after his interjection on Thursday evening. The speaker, Yaël Braun-Pivet, halted proceedings immediately and demanded to know who had made the comment, which came as Carlos Martens Bilongo, of the far-left La France Insoumise (LFI), was questioning the government.
Bilongo, a teacher, was addressing a request by SOS Mediterranée, a humanitarian organisation, for help in finding a port willing to accept 234 migrants rescued at sea in recent days. He said he was “deeply hurt and disappointed” by De Fournas’s remark but was heartened by the many messages of support he had received.
Immediately following the outburst, the parliamentary speaker said an investigation would focus on whether De Fournas said “he” or “they”, to establish whether the comment was directed at Bilongo or the migrants, before deciding on what punishment was appropriate. In French, “Qu’il retourne en Afrique” (he) and “Qu’ils retournent en Afrique” (they) are hard to distinguish when spoken.
On Friday, it was announced that De Fournas would be banned from attending parliamentary sessions for 15 days and lose half of his MP’s salary for two months – the most severe sanction available to the house. |
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