France: Speaker of Parliament rejects minute’s silence for diplomat killed by Israel in Gaza

The Speaker of the French Parliament, Yaël Braun-Pivet, rejected a request on Monday to observe a minute’s silence in memory of a French diplomat killed by an Israeli air strike in the southern Gaza Strip, Anadolu news agency has reported.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the killing of its employee and said that the diplomat, who joined the service in 2002, had taken shelter in a French Consulate staff member’s house along with two colleagues and a number of their relatives. “The house was bombed on Wednesday evening [13 December], fatally injuring the diplomat and killing dozens of others,” added the ministry.

The President of La France Insoumise, Mathilde Panot, described Braun-Pivet’s rejection of the request to observe a minute’s silence as “shameful”. She also explained in her weekly press conference in Parliament that the four children of the dead diplomat who are in Gaza were not included in the list of names to be evacuated to France.

Lawmakers from the French opposition earlier sent a letter to Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, asking her to evacuate the four children.

READ: France parliamentarians demand sanctions against Israel amid killing of Foreign Ministry staffer in Gaza