6/19/2024–|Last updated: 6/19/202401:36 PM (Mecca time)
The French judiciary ordered the organizer of the Eurosatori exhibition of arms companies held near Paris to “suspend” the ban on the participation of Israeli companies in it, according to a lawyer for the French-Israeli Chamber of Commerce.
Yesterday, Tuesday, the Commercial Court in Paris, which examined the case urgently, ruled that the decision of the company “Coges Events” to exclude the 74 Israeli companies entails “discrimination” and creates “disorders that are clearly unlawful,” according to what the agency reported. French press about lawyer Patrick Klugman.
Government decision
Cougs Events announced when it made this decision on the 31st Last May It is acting based on a “decision by government authorities” in the context of the bloody Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip.
But Klugman confirmed that the exhibition organizer “was unable to prove the existence of an administrative decision issued by the authorities” before the Commercial Court.
The exhibition opened on Monday and continues until Friday in Villepinte, north of Paris. Legally, Israeli manufacturers can display their equipment again, but this seems unachievable before the end of the exhibition.
The Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) praised on the “X” platform “a victory against the exclusion of Israel from Eurosatory.”
On Monday, the Council condemned a procedure imposed by the “Cogs” company on visitors to the exhibition, which requires them to sign a form in which they confirm that they do not work for Israeli companies or as intermediaries.
The head of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France, Jonathan Arvi, denounced the measure, saying, “The issue is no longer just preventing Israeli companies from participating in the exhibition, which is a scandalous decision to boycott in the first place, but rather stigmatizing the Israelis themselves and including them on the blacklist.”
apology
For its part, Cogs expressed its regret and offered its “apologies,” saying that it was “a very unfortunate initiative, which was decided urgently based on the court’s decision issued on June 14.”
On Friday, the judicial court in Bobigny (Paris region), at the request of non-governmental organizations, prevented any representative or broker of an Israeli company from attending the exhibition.
In his response to the Bobigny court ruling on Monday, French Minister of the Armed Forces Sebastien Lecornu noted that “the executive authority does not have to comment on the court’s decision, but it is clear that the latter went beyond the initial request of the government, which had never spoken about such a ban.”
Bertrand Heilbron, president of the French Solidarity Association with Palestine, which is a party to the lawsuit, said, “The most important thing is to see that the French judiciary understands the context of the genocidal war in Gaza, and finally realizes the great chaos posed by the presence of Israeli companies at the Eurosatory exhibition.” .
