The French National Assembly has imposed on the far-right deputy Grégoire de Fournas, of Rassemblement Nationale, the harshest punishment it can impose on the occupant of a seat by expelling him from the hemicycle for 15 days and temporarily suspending his salary for uttering a racist insult against the black deputy of La France Insoumise Carlos Martens Bilongo.
The incident in question took place during a plenary session in which the left-wing lawmaker was warning about the situation of the hundreds of migrants rescued by NGO boats in the Mediterranean and waiting to be able to disembark at a safe post in southern Europe. «Let him go to Africa,» De Fournas proclaimed, in a phrase that Martens Bilongo understood as directed at him and that could also be understood in the plural.
De Fournas has apologized to Martens Bilongo if he could have «misinterpreted» his statements, but said he felt he was the «victim» of «manipulation». Thus, in a series of interviews, he has made it clear that he is still an MP, something that is not likely to change in the short term as he seems to have the clear backing of his party.
Former presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has claimed on Twitter that her colleague was «obviously» referring to migrants rescued by NGOs, not Martens Bilongo. «The controversy created by our political opponents is crude and will not deceive the French,» she said.
The French Parliament has not accepted these explanations and has decided to sanction De Fournas with a «censure with temporary exclusion» involving both his expulsion from the Assembly and the deprivation of half of his parliamentary allowance for two months, according to the statement made by the president of the hemicycle, Yaël Braun-Pivet, through the chamber’s official Twitter account.
The vote resulted in the support of all parties except those of National Grouping. In his subsequent appearance, De Fournas has reiterated that he declares himself «totally innocent of the facts» imputed. «I receive this sanction, of an incredible harshness, as a great injustice but, respectful as I am of the institution, I submit to it.»
He is the second deputy to receive this sanction since the establishment of the Fifth Republic in 1958, after the French Communist Party deputy Maxime Gremetz, expelled in March 2011 for an altercation over badly parked ministerial cars, according to him.
