A high school science teacher in France has been suspended since late March for holding a minute’s silence for the victims of Israel’s war on Gaza.

Le Parisien reported on Thursday, citing education authorities, that the physics and chemistry teacher at Janot Curie high school in Sens, Yonne, was suspended on 31 March. Five days earlier, a minute’s silence was held just at the end of her class to pay tribute to the victims of the war, just as Israeli forces unilaterally broke a ceasefire in Gaza and killed more than 700 Palestinians.

The decision marks the latest episode of French authorities taking punitive action over protests and remarks related to Israel’s war on Gaza. Jean-Paul Delescaut, leader of the General Confederation of Labour union, was handed a suspended one-year jail sentence for writing in response to the 7 October Hamas attacks: “The horrors of illegal occupations… are receiving the responses they provoked.”

  • Mrkawfee@feddit.uk
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    11 hours ago

    Why are Europeans simps for genocide? I really don’t understand.

    Americans are Israel’s bitches but what is Europe’s excuse?

    • IndustryStandard@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      France has a pretty big Zionist lobby. They were originally a large arms supplier for Israel until 1962 when Charles de Gaulle put an arms embargo on the region (mainly against Israel). Then Israel switched to America for their weapons and started lobbying there more heavily.

      Colonialism and the French government still go hand in hand.

    • IttihadChe@lemmy.ml
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      7 hours ago

      The idea that Europe is meaningfully less imperialist/more ideologically pure than America is just effective European propaganda. In times like this, the mask slips.

      Europe benefits from Israels existence in the same ways America does and are just as amoral.

  • ceenote@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    If you can interpret a moment of silence as pro-genocide, your brain is broken.