In the decree of dissolution, one association is presented as anti-Zionist and as supporting “organizations known as terrorists and inciting terrorism by suggesting that the creation of a Palestinian state […] can only be achieved at the cost of dismantling the State of Israel” at the end of an armed conflict.

Two pro-Palestinian associations in France, the “Collectif Palestine vaincra” and the “Comité Action Palestine”, have been dissolved by a decision of the French Council of Ministers, being accused of calling “for hatred, violence and discrimination”, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin announced.

The minister had already announced on February 24 the launch of the dissolution procedure against these two associations at the request of French President Emmanuel Macron.

The Palestine Action Committee ‘’called for hatred, violence and discrimination,” said the minister.

The association presents itself, according to its website, as an association ‘’working for the national rights of the Palestinian people.’’ The association also says it denounces “Zionism as a colonialist and racist movement.’’

In the decree of dissolution, the association is presented as anti-Zionist and as supporting “organizations known as terrorists and inciting terrorism by suggesting that the creation of a Palestinian state […] can only be achieved at the cost of dismantling the State of Israel” at the end of an armed conflict.

Articles of an “anti-Semitic nature” have also been noted on the website of the association, which works to “stir up divisions within the national community.

The lawyers of the association announced their intention to challenge this decision before the Council of State and said the dissolution ‘’aims to stifle any criticism, certainly hard, of the policy of Israel.”

The second association, the ”Collectif Palestine Vaincra”, was also dissolved. The reasons are broadly the same: “As detailed in the decree that I presented, it called for hatred, violence and discrimination,” wrote the minister. The decree denounces in particular a “hatred of Jews”.

Among the latest actions of the association, based in Toulouse, a campaign “#Palestine2022” aimed at “denouncing the collaboration of French governments with Israeli apartheid” and to “invite the subject of the Palestinian cause in the debates of the presidential election,” reads its website.