MPs from the Communist Party are seen in the French National Assembly. Photo: Reuters/Magali Cohen

France’s National Assembly on Thursday firmly rejected a resolution tabled by a Communist Party MP that denounced Israel as an “apartheid” state and called for the imposition of an arms embargo and other sanctions.

The motion — tabled by Jean-Paul Le Coq, one of the leaders of the far left NUPES alliance — was roundly defeated by 199 votes against 71 in favor.

The resolution accused Israel of having “institutionalized an apartheid regime” over the Palestinians in eastern Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It called for recognition of the “State of Palestine,” the imposition of a “strict arms embargo” upon Israel and the boycott of goods produced in West Bank settlements. The text also stressed the right to condemn the “illiberal and colonial drift of this state” without being accused of antisemitism. However, on the question of Israel’s right to exist — which the campaign to subject Israel to a regime of boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) rejects outright — the resolution emphasized that its sponsors held a “deep attachment” to the Jewish state’s continued survival.

In a statement accompanying the resolution, Le Coq argued “whether the reasons are political, security or religious, the colonization policy is contrary to international legality.” He insisted that the current Palestinian predicament “amounts juridically to a situation of apartheid” — the Afrikaner term for the enforced legal segregation of South Africa’s Black majority by a white minority regime for most of the twentieth century.

The motion was supported by Green and far left MPs but rejected by the center-left Socialist Party, which said that it would table a separate resolution on the issue in the coming days. Jérôme Guedj, a Socialist MP, said that he objected to the term “apartheid,” as this “racialized what is a territorial dispute.”

MPs from center and right-wing parties angrily criticized the resolution. Aurore Bergé, president of the centrist Renaissance Party, asserted that the text was a “gesture of detestation against the State of Israel,” while the right-wing MP Meyer Habib, a close ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, opined that the resolution proved that “antisemitism today is mainly on the left.”

The resolution was first proposed in July 2022 and approvingly quoted from several international human rights organizations in support of its contention that Israel practices apartheid, among them Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Israel-based B’tselem.