French dock workers block shipment of military material for Israel: union
The stevedores at the port in Fos-sur-Mer outside Marseille have refused to load crates of links used to assist the rapid fire of bullets aboard the cargo vessel, the CGT trade union said.
Links are small metal pieces, used to connect machine gun bullets and allowing rapid bursts of fire. There has been concern in media and among rights groups that they have likely been used against civilians in the Gaza Strip.
Christophe Claret, leader of the dock workers in the port, said they had been notified that the ship was due to be loaded on Thursday with the material.
"We managed to identify it and set it aside," he told AFP, emphasising that once dockers refuse to load a shipment, no one else can do it for them. The other containers for the ship will all be loaded.
According to the union, the cargo is 19 pallets of links manufactured by the Marseille-based company Eurolinks.
The CGT said the move made clear its refusal to "participate in the ongoing genocide orchestrated by the Israeli government." Leading rights groups have accused Israel of committing genocide in its military campaign, a charge vehemently rejected by the government.
'Humanism is not for sale'
Contacted by AFP, Eurolinks did not respond to a request for comment. The Port of Marseille-Fos had no comment.
"We are very proud of this action led by our comrades and which is part of the CGT's long internationalist tradition for peace," CGT secretary general Sophie Binet told reporters in the eastern city of Strasbourg on Thursday.
"It is unacceptable that CGT dockers should be the ones forced to uphold the fundamental principles of international law and French values. The government must immediately block all arms deliveries to the State of Israel," she said.
The move was also welcomed by hard-left and left-wing leaders in France.
"Humanism is not for sale," said Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure.
According to the investigative website Disclose, which had access to maritime data, two other such shipments between Fos-sur-Mer and the Israeli port of Haifa took place on April 3 and May 22.
French Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu had stated at the time that these parts exported by the Marseille company would be "re-exported" through Israel and not used by the Israeli army.
The latest war started after Hamas fighters attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures. Of the 251 hostages seized during the attack, 55 remain in Gaza, including 32 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel's military offensive on Gaza since October 2023 has killed 54,677 people, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the occupied Palestinian territory, while the United Nations said on May 30 the territory's entire population of more than two million people was at risk of famine.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
LeMonde
13 minutes ago
- LeMonde
Trump says he's focusing on Russia, China, Iran and 'not thinking about Elon Musk': 'I just wish him well'
US President Donald Trump said Friday, June 6, that Elon Musk had "lost his mind" but insisted he wanted to move on from the fiery split with his billionaire former ally. The blistering public break-up between the world's richest person and the world's most powerful is fraught with political and economic risks all around. Trump had scrapped the idea of a call with Musk and was even thinking of ditching the red Tesla he bought at the height of their bromance, White House officials told AFP. "Honestly I've been so busy working on China, working on Russia, working on Iran... I'm not thinking about Elon Musk, I just wish him well," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to his New Jersey golf club late Friday. Earlier, Trump told US broadcasters that he now wanted to focus instead on passing his "big, beautiful" mega-bill before Congress – Musk's harsh criticism of which had sparked their break-up. But the 78-year-old Republican could not stop himself from taking aim at his South African-born friend-turned-enemy. "You mean the man who has lost his mind?" Trump said in a call with ABC when asked about Musk, adding that he was "not particularly" interested in talking to the tycoon. Trump later told Fox News that Musk had "lost it." Just a week ago Trump gave Musk a glowing send-off as he left his cost-cutting role at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after four months working there. 'Very disappointed' While there had been reports of tensions, the sheer speed at which their relationship imploded stunned Washington. After Musk called Trump's spending bill an "abomination" on Tuesday, Trump hit back in an Oval Office diatribe on Thursday in which he said he was "very disappointed" by the entrepreneur. Trump's spending bill faces a difficult path through Congress as it will raise the US deficit, while critics say it will cut health care for millions of the poorest Americans. The row then went nuclear, with Musk slinging insults at Trump and accusing him without evidence of being in government files on disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump hit back with the power of the US government behind him, saying he could cancel the SpaceX boss's multi-billion-dollar rocket and satellite contracts. Trump struck a milder tone late Friday when asked how seriously he is considering cutting Musk's contracts. "It's a lot of money, it's a lot of subsidy, so we'll take a look – only if it's fair. Only if it's to be fair for him and the country," he said. Musk apparently also tried to de-escalate social media hostilities. The right-wing tech baron rowed back on a threat to scrap his company's Dragon spacecraft – vital for ferrying NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station. And on Friday, the usually garrulous poster kept a low social media profile on his X social network. But the White House denied reports that they would talk. "The president does not intend to speak to Musk today," a senior White House official told AFP. A second official said Musk had requested a call. Tesla giveaway? Tesla stocks tanked more than 14% on Thursday amid the row, losing some $100 billion of the company's market value, but recovered partly on Friday. Trump is now considering either selling or giving away the cherry red Tesla S that he announced he had bought from Musk's firm in March. The electric vehicle was still parked on the White House grounds on Friday. "He's thinking about it, yes," a senior White House official told AFP when asked if Trump would sell or give it away. Trump and Musk had posed inside the car at a bizarre event in March, when the president turned the White House into a pop-up Tesla showroom after viral protests against Musk's DOGE role. But while Trump appeared to hold many of the cards, Musk also has some to play. His wealth allowed him to be the biggest donor to Trump's 2024 campaign, to the tune of nearly $300 million. Any further support for the 2026 midterm election now appears in doubt –while Musk could also use his money to undermine Trump's support on the right.
LeMonde
an hour ago
- LeMonde
French renewable energy is in turmoil after massive Spanish power outage
"France is producing too much electricity, risking a financial meltdown." In mid-April, the business daily La Tribune sounded the alarm. The headline summed up a concern that has gripped part of the French energy and political world for months: While in 2022 the country braced for potential power cuts due to nuclear fleet failures, soaring energy prices and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a new fear has been raised – overproduction. The main culprits are solar and wind power, which are providing increasingly more energy while electricity consumption is stagnating. Their rise could threaten the grid, public finances and the nuclear fleet, prompting calls to slow – or even stop – their development. Just days before stepping down as CEO of EDF (multinational electric utility company), Luc Rémont described to lawmakers in the French Sénat on April 22 the "major challenge" posed by "the growing gap between supply and demand" for electricity. "In the coming years, we will have to ensure that this imbalance between dispatchable sources [notably nuclear] and intermittent sources [renewables] does not undermine the stability of the system, either physically or economically. That is truly the greatest challenge we face," he stressed.
LeMonde
4 hours ago
- LeMonde
'The silence on Gaza dramatically exposes a blind spot in our cultures of remembrance'
Once considered "world champions of mass crimes," Germans could, until October 7, 2023, pride themselves – as Holocaust historian Götz Aly put it – on being "world champions of commemoration." But as the war on Gaza continues, have they now become champions of willful blindness? Although Germany's culture of remembrance has remained – following Theodor W. Adorno's 1966 essay Education After Auschwitz – of shaping enlightened citizens as guardians of democracy and the principle of "never again," this commitment has been tested in the face of current events. It took several months for Chancellor Friedrich Merz to "discover reality" and make unexpectedly clear statements on Gaza, according to Der Tagesspiegel on May 27. However, these remarks have so far remained purely rhetorical, with no accompanying action. This disconnect between the idealized model of remembrance and current reality is not limited to Germany. In France, where the "duty of memory" has been a political and educational mantra since the 1980s, President Emmanuel Macron – himself shaped by Paul Ricœur (1913-2005) and his pursuit of a "just memory" – finally dared to criticize the "shameful" acts of Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right government. Yet euphemisms still prevail, with crimes whose genocidal nature grow more evident each day being referred to merely as a "tragedy," and the task of determining their legal qualification as genocide postponed to historians "in due time," despite the wealth of documentation – even under Israeli blockade. Several Israeli Holocaust historians, such as Omer Bartov, Amos Goldberg, and Daniel Blatman, have already described the situation of Palestinians in Gaza as genocide. In the face of glaringly inadequate European reactions – with notable exceptions in Spain, Ireland, Norway, and Slovenia – we, as historians, question what memory policies can and cannot do, and what they have produced: a certain conformism, a tendency toward blindness and self-censorship, and political manipulation both domestically and internationally.
