On May 27, the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal in France fined the author of an article 17,000 euros (approximately $19,500) on charges related to the Palestine issue, including compensation for Zionist organizations that participated in the lawsuit as civil plaintiffs. This is seen as an example of a troubling trend in how the French judiciary handles the Palestine issue.
More notable is the case of Mohamed Makni, a businessman, family man, and deputy mayor of the town of Echirolles. In March 2024, the Cour de cassation, the highest court in the French judicial system, upheld his conviction. Accordingly, Makni was sentenced to four months suspended prison and barred from holding any public office for four months.
Makni's offense was simply quoting a statement by Ahmed Ounaies, former Tunisian Foreign Minister and former ambassador for President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's regime to Russia and India. This statement did not come from Palestinian military commanders or Hamas officials, but from a figure unconnected to revolutionary rhetoric. Ounaies said: “They are quick to label as terrorism what we clearly see as an act of resistance.”
The French Cour de cassation, for the first time since October 7, 2023, directly intervened in the political and legal battle over the classification of Palestinian resistance. Makni's conviction did not punish calls for murder or attacks, but simply the linking of occupation and resistance. In other words, it criminalizes a political framework supported by many, extending beyond Hamas supporters.
According to the author, this move shows that French courts are not only operating under government influence, but the government itself is under external influence. After the events of October 7, 2023, the French government used the charge of “apology for terrorism” as a key tool to control public discourse on Palestine. Originally established to combat propaganda by the Islamic State group (ISIL) and jihadist recruitment, this charge gradually became a means to control discourse that refuses to separate the October 7 events from their historical context.
The Makni case raises the question: Is it still possible in France to point out that occupation generates resistance without being accused of apologizing for terrorism? The criminalization of attempts to link actions on October 7, 2023 in Israel with resistance demands is seen by the author as an insult to the thinking of prominent French political leaders, such as General Charles de Gaulle, who in 1967 acknowledged the link between the right to resist illegal occupation and the tendency of colonizers to describe that resistance as “terrorism.”
