Left Voice’s sister site, Revolution Permanente, interviewed lawyer and RP member Elsa Marcel about the upcoming trial of Anasse Kazib and another RP activist. Below, we republish the interview, which explains the repressive anti-terror laws these activists are being tried under and how they are using it as an opportunity to expose the injustice of the French state and the genocide in Palestine.

On Wednesday, June 18, Anasse Kazib and another Permanent Révolution activist will go to trial on charges of “apology for terrorism.” What does this trial reveal about the French political situation?

The complaint against Anasse Kazib is part of the process of criminalizing solidarity with Palestine, which has been intensifying over the past year and a half. This process began with a total ban on demonstrations in support of Gaza, following Israel’s response to October 7. This repression has continued with criminal prosecutions targeting numerous anonymous individuals, including a 13-year-old child, as well as political, union, and community leaders. This criminalization mobilizes two legal mechanisms.

The first is incitement to racial hatred, which aims to equate any criticism of the State of Israel with antisemitism. Recently, I defended a man charged with incitement to racial hatred because he posted a political leaflet that mentioned “[Bezalel] Smotrich, fascist terrorist.” Some prosecutors consider this an antisemitic leaflet, even though my client was ultimately acquitted.

The second is the apology for terrorism, which condemns any position taken on October 7 and on the conflict as soon as it deviates from the stance of the French, American, and Israeli states, and the European Union. In addition to these two motives, other forms of repression are at play, such as the attempted dissolution of the Palestine Vaincra collective and that of Urgence Palestine, or the freezing of the assets of one of its spokespersons, Omar Alsoumi. Thus, an entire repressive system can be mobilized for expressing simple positions!

How did we get here?

The offense of apology dates back to 1893–94 and served the state to repress the anarchist movement. This offense allows for much broader criminal repression since it doesn’t punish the commission of an act but rather the act of praising it, thus repressing opinions or intentions. The apology regime shifted in 2014 with the Socialist Party law, which removed this mechanism from press offenses, which were governed by much more liberal laws, and placed it under the much more repressive regime of terrorist offenses. This represents significant changes. Ideological changes, since we are no longer in the realm of the debate over whether or not we are exceeding the scope of freedom of expression but are practically on the first step of the ladder of terrorist offenses. But also procedural changes, since it becomes possible to mobilize the anti-terrorist arsenal—in particular, certain investigative or surveillance methods—and to impose much harsher sentences or even immediate prosecution (which is impossible for press offenses). If the Socialist Party carried out in-depth work on the “apology for terrorism” charge, then Macronism added, in a way, the icing on the cake in 2021 [with the separatism law], which made it possible, among other things, to use this offense as a reason for registration in the Fijait, the file of perpetrators of terrorist offenses, which is very cumbersome and restrictive for those who are registered there. It requires, for example, declaring any travel abroad or providing one’s address every three months to the police.

Ultimately, it only took a few years for the “glorification of terrorism” to become a weapon of mass destruction against freedom of expression. This is also confirmed by statistics: in addition to the 14 convictions for glorifying terrorism from 1994 to 2014, there were more than 330 convictions in 2015 alone, targeting a large number of minors and resulting in prison sentences. This legislation was denounced in 2014 by human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, which explained that it opened the door to arbitrariness since terrorism is so vaguely defined. Criminal lawyer Henri Leclerc said it was a law used to convict “drunks and children.”

After October 7, 2023, we are witnessing an unprecedented application of this offense, as it now allows for the punishment of remarks about a conflict or an act that did not even occur on French territory and that involves organizations not classified as terrorist by international organizations. Unlike Daesh or Al-Qaeda, which are classified as terrorist organizations by the United Nations, only the United States, France, the European Union, Canada, and, of course, Israel classify Hamas as a terrorist organization. In this context, we are taking a further step compared to the use of the offense of apology that was made after the terrorist attack of November 13, 2015, for example, when supporters of Palestine are condemned as soon as they characterize the Palestinian national movement as “resistance.” Indeed, such a characterization is defended by many historians, journalists, and academics who clearly explain that the term “resistance” refers to the military efforts of colonized populations facing the regular army of an occupying state. Its use does not imply political adherence to all the organizations that make up this camp but is limited to describing an objective reality within the framework of an asymmetrical conflict.

This particularly repressive new extension led former anti-terrorism judge Marc Trévidic to denounce “a real abuse” and a “totally misused application of the law.” Around the world, France is criticized for its use of this offense. The UN’s National Consultative Commission on Human Rights wrote an open letter to the Minister of Justice in April 2024, warning against using the system to persecute political leaders, community leaders, and activists. It emphasizes the illegitimacy of employing criminal justice to force the population to align with Macron’s claims about the Palestinian issue.

Freedom of expression must be strengthened all the more since an international conflict is at stake. Otherwise, there is a risk that the French state will be granted a kind of authority to characterize conflicts and shape public opinion in its favor. It is noteworthy to draw a connection between the criminalization of support for Palestine and the trials targeting anti-militarist activists in the 1910s. When one reads Rosa Luxemburg’s defense before the Frankfurt court in 1914, one is struck by the great similarity between the offenses used to criminalize her political activity and those used today. She faced significant criticism for her speeches at demonstrations and her political agitation against the war and German patriotism. It is the same category of offense, “apology for” and “call to,” which targets the very act of defending positions that directly oppose those of the regime. But it is important to understand that this criminalization of political opinions is a double-edged sword: because the prosecution does not base its accusations on the commission of a material act, and because there are no debates on facts but only on words and positions, a political defense can be forcefully constructed in the courts.

In what tradition does this conception of a political defense fit, and what does it mean?

There has existed, throughout the world, particularly in France, a tradition of political defense that views the confrontation with justice as a distinct moment in the class struggle and an unavoidable aspect of political struggle. We can think of Lenin, who called for seizing the courtroom to address the masses, bypassing the judges, but also of the lawyers of the insurgent militants of the Algerian National Liberation Front, who explained that a defense limited to the judicial level was akin to a bullfight in the arena: without an escape route, winning was impossible. We can also recall the major anti-militarist trials, where Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht asserted that they were not there to defend themselves but to accuse, demonstrating that their prosecution was rooted in their political stance and the impact it had on the masses during moments of significant social polarization.

I often think of this sentence, from a small manual written by the collective of lawyers who defended the Algerian revolutionaries to which Jacques Vergés belonged, which says,

Faced with the scale of the protest rising against its policy, the French government is paradoxically reduced to multiplying the number of trials in which its policy is increasingly harshly called into question… So-called liberal prosecutors and ultra-government commissioners are asking themselves: how can they emerge victorious, even just once, from a political trial? And although their auxiliaries spare neither bath water, nor acetylene from blowtorches, nor electric current, each time, and more and more, political trials turn into their confusion. These naive Machiavellians forget only one thing: that in the face of courageous enemies, a political trial is only won when one is right. They forget only one thing: that they are wrong.

Even though the context and the issues are different, this proud and political approach to the audience is very inspiring.

I also study the work carried out by Jean-Paul Sartre and all the intellectuals who led the Russell tribunals, particularly the one set up to try war crimes committed by the United States during the Vietnam War. The idea was obviously not to achieve a judicial conviction as such, but to generate a huge movement of agitation and impose the definition of “genocide” on political grounds in the face of U.S. impunity. Since state justice is always that of the victors, only a broad democratic mobilization can spread a counternarrative and defend the memory of the oppressed. This tradition of political defense was very rich until the 1980s, but then it gradually dissolved. With the neoliberal counterrevolution, and also under the influence of Mitterrandism (the reign of French socialist president François Mitterrand), lawyers adopted much more defensive strategies, notably invoking the principles of liberal democracy even though these are less and less respected.

It is with this tradition that we seek to reconnect, considering, as I mentioned earlier, that the resurgence of political criminalization in the strictest sense can be an opportunity to engage in more assertive forms of defense. Specifically, in the context of the trial of Anasse Kazib, with my colleagues Prisca Ancion, Romane Bartoli, and Julie Gonidec also responsible for the defense, this means recognizing that political cowardice does not pay in court. Moreover, we aim to use this trial to generate significant mobilization. Not only does the judge’s decision depend on the pressure outside the court and the democratic balance of power we can establish, but we also believe that his trial can serve as a platform to articulate political positions to their fullest extent. This last point is particularly important given that the Palestinian genocide is reaching absolutely abominable proportions, that Israel appears more isolated than ever, and that the trial of Anasse Kazib coincides with Macron speaking at the UN on the Palestinian question.

We can use this trial as a basis for accusing France of complicity in the genocide, not only because it finances and arms Israel, but also because it prosecutes people who, here in France advocate solidarity with the Palestinians.

Specifically, how was the defense of Anasse Kazib and the comrade of Révolution Permanente constructed?

We tried to take the criminalization of support for Palestine literally. To do this, we mobilized the leading experts on the Palestinian question, and several witnesses will testify: journalist Alain Gresh, a specialist in the Middle East and founder of the website Orient XXI; Rony Brauman, a doctor involved in humanitarian action and former president of the association Doctors without Borders; Eugénie Mérieau, a French political scientist and constitutional lawyer; and Pierre Stambul, copresident of the French Jewish Union for Peace. Others have sent us written testimonies, including Omar Bartov, a historian and specialist in the Holocaust and genocide who served several years as an officer in the Israeli army; Richard Anderson Falk, a specialist in international law and former special rapporteur appointed by the UN on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967; Serge Halimi, a journalist and historian, former editor of Le Monde diplomatique; and Ilan Pappé, a conflict specialist, author, and founder of the Academic Institute for Peace in Israel. All these witnesses will testify during the trial to demonstrate that positions supporting the resistance and the camp of the oppressed did not emerge on October 7 but have been foundational to anti-colonial and anti-imperialist thought since the beginning of colonial oppression. We were even able to speak with Marc Trévidic, former investigating judge of the anti-terrorism unit of the Paris High Court, who discusses the abuses related to the offense of apologizing for terrorism to repress positions that are part of public debate.

The purpose of these testimonies is to lend more substance to the hearing and to contrast with the systematic and trivial nature of the condemnations that have silently followed one another for months. We also want to demonstrate that the positions supporting Palestine are those with the most historical and scientific foundations and to show that the aim of the complaint is to prevent a public figure from denouncing what is happening in Gaza and the complicity of Western institutions in the genocide.

In parallel with the legal work to build a political defense in court, we have recently led a major democratic support campaign for freedom of expression and against the criminalization of support for Gaza, centered around the slogan “Acquittal for Anasse Kazib and for all those repressed.” In this context, we notably initiated a support platform signed by more than 1,000 international public and political figures, organized a major press conference with Franco-Palestinian activist and European MP Rima Hassan, anti-racist activist Assa Traoré, and philosopher Frédéric Lordon, and held a roundtable on the criminalization of support for Palestine with numerous lawyers and political scientists, including Eugénie Mérieau and Vanessa Codaccioni. We also aimed to deploy this support campaign in the labor movement, starting with trade union organizations and workplaces, particularly at the SNCF, since Anasse Kazib is a railway worker and head of SUD-Rail, but also more broadly. We relied on the large internationalist meeting organized by Révolution Permanente and its international movement in Paris on May 24 to give an international dimension to our support campaign. On the day of the trial, rallies will be organized in several countries, and we are receiving expressions of solidarity from around the world demanding the acquittal of Anasse Kazib and all those repressed in the solidarity movement. A rally in Argentina, organized by Révolution Permanente’s sister organization, the Socialist Workers Party, brought together hundreds of people in front of the French embassy. As activist and lawyer Myriam Bregman points out, these prosecutions reveal the true face of liberal democracies around the world and require an international response. We were also received at the Catalan Parliament and the European Parliament.

Ultimately, the most strategic aspect of this defense is less about the outcome of the conviction than about how it is used to put the genocide in Gaza on trial and to highlight the complicity of the French state and its authoritarian measures to criminalize supporters of Palestine. In a context where liberal opinion is turning against the scale of the genocide and the solidarity movement is experiencing a resurgence worldwide, the trial of Anasse Kazib can mark an important moment to halt the criminalization of solidarity with Palestine. See you on June 18 at noon in front of the Paris Tribunal and at the rallies taking place in other cities!

This article was originally published in French in Révolution Permanente on June 14.