France’s lower house of parliament adjourned on Thursday after a far-right lawmaker shouted: “Go back to Africa!” as a black lawmaker from the far left asked a question about immigration.
The comment caused quite a stir. The centrist government and left-wing coalition said it was an unacceptable racist slur. The far-right argued that MP Grégoire de Furnas was not aiming the words at the MP who asked the question, Carlos Martens Bilongo, but at migrants stranded on an NGO boat.
“There is no place for racism in our democracy. The Bureau of the National Assembly will meet (on Friday) and will have to decide on the necessary sanctions,” Prime Minister Elizabeth Bourne told reporters after the incident.
De Furnas, a member of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and his party, maintained that he had said nothing wrong.
“He apparently talked about the migrants brought in by NGO boats,” Le Pen wrote on Twitter. “The controversy created by our political opponents … will not deceive the French.”
Bilongo saw it very differently, calling the comment “disgraceful”. “Today, I was sent back to the color of my skin. I was born in France. I am a French parliamentarian,” he said.
Stephane Sejourne, who leads President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party, said de Fournas should resign and the leftist Nupes alliance said he should be expelled.
In recent years, Le Pen has made huge strides in detoxifying her party’s image and convincing voters that the party founded by her father Jean-Marie, who was convicted multiple times of inciting racial hatred, has moved toward the conservative mainstream. and is now fit to rule.
With 89 MPs, the RN is the second largest party in parliament.
A close Le Pen ally, Jordan Bardela, is expected to take over as party leader on Saturday – even if Le Pen is still seeking power.
“The National Rally showed its true face today,” the leftist Nupes alliance said in a statement. “This racist slur is characteristic of the extreme right: stigmatize according to the color of your skin, divide the French people.”
