On October 12, as Israel indiscriminately bombed Gaza, the French police fired tear gas and water cannons at protesters gathered in Paris. Days earlier, the country’s interior minister, Gerald Darmanin, had called for local authorities to ban pro-Palestine demonstrations, citing supposed threats to public order.

The Hamas attack on October 7 was treated in France as an equivalent to the Bataclan shootings — a random terrorist atrocity motivated by religious extremism. The space for discussion immediately tightened. Anyone who sought to place the event in the context of escalating violence against Palestinians was accused of supporting terrorism, including members of the left-wing political party La France Insoumise.

This was not the first time civil liberties have been restricted to suppress Palestine solidarity. In 2021, as Israel pummeled Gaza and unleashed violence on Palestinians protesting the clearing of Sheikh Jarrah in Jerusalem, the French state banned pro-Palestine protests.