The Paris police headquarters is not taking any risks. The demonstration “against the genocide in Gaza and for respect for the ceasefire”scheduled for this Wednesday, October 7, three years to the day after the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel, and at the initiative of the Urgence Palestine collective, was banned by the authorities.
Request from Laurent Nuñez
“In a context of high terrorist threat and while anti-Semitic acts remain at a historically high level in our country, such a demonstration on this day poses significant risks of disturbances to public order”specified on X Patrice Faure, prefect of police of Paris, adding that the ban order was taken “at the request of the Minister of the Interior”.
According to information from AFP, the pro-Palestinian collective intends to file an appeal with the administrative court. In a press release, he denounces “political censorship” and one “serious attack on freedom of expression and the freedom to demonstrate”. “October 7 represents for the Palestinian people the beginning of the genocidal offensive on Gaza” And “cannot become a day of banning criticism of the Israeli colonial state”we can read. Urgence Palestine also criticizes a “France’s continued complicity with Israel”.
This demonstration takes on particular symbolism, three years after the attacks committed on October 7, 2023 by Hamas commandos on Israeli soil, which left 1,221 dead, the vast majority civilians. The war that ensued between the Jewish state and the Palestinian terrorist group left at least 74,200 dead, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, whose reports are considered reliable by the UN.
Last year, on the same date, Urgence Palestine obtained the organization of a demonstration, during which “the slogans “Israel assassin, Macron complicit”, “Israel assassin, Carrefour complicit” and “Fascists, Zionists, you are the terrorists” were chanted by the participants, which caused a shock within the Jewish community, in particular”, recalls the order of the police headquarters. Founded the day after the October 7 assault, Urgence Palestine has already hit the headlines for its positions deemed favorable to Hamas. In December, its spokesperson, Omar Asloumi, was to be tried in Paris for advocating terrorism, after having mentioned in flattering terms the “Al-Aqsa flood” in November 2024, named after the terrorist operation.
The document explains that there is thus “a serious risk that similar comments, constituting a disturbance of immaterial public order, will be made again during the demonstration”, in a context of a sharp increase in anti-Semitic acts since the start of the war in Gaza. “anti-Semitic acts remain at a historically high level and represent 53% of all anti-religious acts on the national territory”, specifies the text. In 2025, the Ministry of the Interior recorded 1,320 acts or remarks hostile to Israel or Jews, a figure three times higher than that of 2022, the year preceding the conflagration in the Middle East.
