The general secretary of the CGT in the northern region, Jean-Paul Delescaut, and the association’s administrative secretary were arrested at their homes at 6 a.m. by a dozen police officers and taken to the central police station in Lille.
The union condemned the arrests and called for a rally in support of its leaders, to demand their “immediate release” and to denounce the “use of totally disproportionate means, a dozen agents, some of them masked,” used in the arrests .
“Sorry for terrorism, who can believe that?” “The excuse for terrorism is the government’s unconditional support for war crimes in Gaza,” responded Insoumise France leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon on Twitter.
In the statement released on October 10, the CGT expressed “its full support for the Palestinian people in their struggle against the colonial state of Israel,” considered that “the horrors of illegal occupation have accumulated,” and added: “ Our internationalist values. The brotherhood between peoples and the anti-colonial struggle mean that we do not remain neutral.”
On the basis of this content, complaints of excusing terrorism were processed and the prefect of the northern department, Georges-François Leclerc, banned three demonstrations in support of Palestine, one of which was called by the union.
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