French President’s Party Withdraws 2nd Candidate Who Supported BDS
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) – For the second time this month, the party of French President Emmanuel Macron withdrew from its parliamentary elections ticket a candidate who promoted a boycott of Israel.
William Tchamaha was removed Thursday from the En Marche party’s list in next month’s elections, the news site Actu reported.
CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish organizations, had called for his removal, citing his support for the boycott campaign. Promoting a boycott of countries or their citizens is illegal in France, where it is classified as hate speech.
“A state outside the law that despises the law,” Tchamaha wrote Feb. 8 on Twitter in a message that has since been deleted. “Boycott Israeli products and [apply] an economic embargo!”
In 2015, Tchamaha tweeted about the slaying by Israeli police officers of Palestinians while they were trying to carry out terrorist attacks against Israelis.
An En Marche spokesman neither confirmed nor denied to Actu that Tchamaha’s removal from the ticket was connected to the tweets.
“He no longer corresponded with the values that we uphold,” the party’s elections committee said without elaborating.
Last week, En Marche withdrew from its list another candidate that CRIF had urged the party to withdraw over anti-Israel tweets.
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