An MP for the radical-left France Unbowed (LFI) party has sparked outrage at the weekend after saying Israeli athletes are not welcome at the Paris Olympics and calling for protests against their presence.
Citing Israel’s war in Gaza, Thomas Portes told a pro-Palestinian gathering in Paris on Saturday: “We are just a few days away from an international event to be held in Paris, the Olympic Games. And I’m here to say that no, the Israeli delegation is not welcome in Paris. Israeli athletes are not welcome at the Olympic Games in Paris. We have to use this deadline and all the levers we have to mobilise.”
Yonathan Arfi, the head of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), described the comments as “indecent” and “irresponsible”, accusing Portes of “putting a target on the backs of Israeli athletes”. The Israeli embassy declined to comment.
Arfi reminded the MP that 11 Israeli athletes were killed by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics and said the country’s Olympians were “already the most in danger” at the Games.
Portes later told Le Parisien newspaper that French diplomats should put pressure on the International Olympic Committee to ban the Israeli flag and anthem at the Games, which open on Friday, “as is done for Russia”. “It’s time to end the double standards,” Portes said.
His comments drew criticism from other politicians. Karen Taieb, one of Paris’s deputy mayors, said Portes was “a danger and a disgrace”. “What we expect from our elected representatives is the idea of joining together. These people are advocating hatred,” Taieb wrote on X.
The French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said: “The hints of antisemitism in his [Portes’] comments are obvious.” Israeli athletes would receive 24-hour protection during the Olympics, he added.
The Socialist MP Jérôme Guedj posted on X: “Of course Israeli athletes are welcome, like all athletes from all over the world. Not for who they are, but for what they do.”
Some LFI lawmakers offered a partial defence of Portes’ comments. Manuel Bompard, a senior party official and lawmaker, wrote on social media platform X that he supported Portes “in the face of the wave of hatred he is experiencing.
“Faced with repeated violations of international law by the Israeli government, it is legitimate to ask that its athletes compete under a neutral banner in the Olympic Games,” he wrote.
The Palestinian Olympic Committee on Monday joined calls for Israel to be excluded from the Games in an open letter to International Olympic Committee President, Thomas Bach.
The letter accused Israel of breaching the traditional Olympic truce, which is scheduled to run from 19 July until after the Paralympics in mid-September, with continued military action in Gaza.
The Games kick off on Friday with an ambitious opening ceremony along the Seine with athletes paraded in barges down the river. Israeli officials have declined to say whether Israel’s athletes will take part in the optional parade although President Isaac Herzog is due to attend. He will also take part in a commemoration for the Israelis killed in Munich in 1972.
Israel denies violating international law in its attack on Gaza, although prosecutors at the international criminal court are seeking arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes allegedly committed during the Gaza war.
Israel’s football team is scheduled to play its first match of the Olympics against Mali in Paris’s Parc des Princes stadium on Wednesday, two days before the opening ceremony.
On Monday the foreign minister, Stéphane Séjourné, said at a meeting with EU counterparts in Brussels: “I want to say on behalf of France, to the Israeli delegation, we welcome you to France for these Olympic Games.”
Reuters contributed to this report
