Far-left lawmakers booed out of memorial event in Toulouse

At the 14th annual commemoration ceremony on Thursday for the murder of four French Jews at a Jewish school in Toulouse, participants booed representatives of the far-left France Unbowed (LFI) party, forcing them to leave.

The incident occurred at the city’s Capitole square, where hundreds had gathered for speeches and a wreath-laying tribute, Sud Radio reported. When LFI lawmakers François Piquemal and Hadrien Clouet laid their wreath, dozens of people began booing them, calling them “far-left fascists” and “antisemites,” and shouting “Shame on you” until police intervened and asked the men to leave to preserve the peace, the report said.

The incident was usual for the event, where LFI representatives had participated in previous years. This year’s commemoration fell three days ahead of Sunday’s second and final round in the municipal elections, where the Socialist Party and the far-left LFI have run jointly in some locales to beat right-wing candidates. CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish communities, has condemned this collaboration, saying LFI has antisemitic tendencies and an “anti-republican” (meaning anti-constitutional) agenda.

LFI leader Jean-Luc Melenchon has called Israel a “genocide state” and has frequently used antisemitic rhetoric.

In a 2017 speech, Mélenchon called French Jews “an arrogant minority that lectures to others.” In an earlier speech, he celebrated anti-Israel protesters days after some of them stormed a synagogue, condemning only French Jews who demonstrated to support Israel.

At the school on March 12, 2012, a jihadist murdered Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, 30, his sons Arieh, 6, and Gabriel, 3, and 8-year-old Myriam Monsonego, daughter of the head teacher.

Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the European Conference of Rabbis, said that the attack was the opening shot of a new form of terrorism against Europe’s Jews, which replicated itself across the continent and beyond.