Jean-Paul Delescaut was arrested today, after having displayed his support for the Palestinians on a leaflet.
Jean-Paul Delescaut, departmental secretary of the CGT in the North was placed in police custody on Friday October 20, 2023, for “apology for terrorism”, after a leaflet on the conflict to the Middle East.
He was arrested by a dozen police officers at his home in Valenciennes, as well as an administrative secretary of the union.
In this leaflet, the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) North claims that “the horrors of the illegal occupation have accumulated” and that “since Saturday (October 7) they have received the answers they have caused”.
Furthermore, “the Departmental Union of CGT Unions of the North provides all their support for the Palestinian people fighting against the colonial state of Israel”. The CGT ensures that “the peoples undergo the colonial policy of the Zionist entity” and that “the end of the occupation is the condition of peace in Palestine”.
For the CGT, Israel is a “fascist government” which displays “an uninhibited racism” and which leads “an apartheid concentrationnaire policy depriving the Palestinian people of their fundamental rights”.
The union immediately reacted to these arrests and “denounced” “the use of completely disproportionate means” since “these activists represent no threat”.
The two trade unionists were released a little more to the day, but this police custody notably reacted Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the former leader of rebellious France estimating on social network X (formerly Twitter) that “Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin make France a kind of new authoritarian regime”.
He adds that “the apology for terrorism is the unconditional government support for war crimes in Gaza”.
