Palestinian activist Ramy Shaath says France is seeking to deport him

PARIS (AP) — Palestinian activist Ramy Shaath said French authorities are seeking to deport him on the grounds that he is a threat to public security, accusing France of targeting him over his pro-Palestinian activism.

Shaath, 54, said in a May 14 video statement posted online that the move was part of what he described as a broader campaign to silence Palestinians and supporters of the Palestinian cause in France.

Shaath helped found the pro-Palestinian organization Urgence Palestine after the start of the Israel-Hamas war. He accused French authorities of targeting him after earlier legal proceedings failed.

France’s Interior Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Shaath said in the video that the deportation move followed earlier difficulties renewing his French residency papers, despite his family ties in France. He also alleged that his bank account had been closed without warning and that his health insurance card had been suspended, saying the measures affected his ability to work, travel and receive care.

Shaath said he and his family would challenge the proceedings before French and European courts.

Shaath, who is Egyptian and Palestinian by birth, previously coordinated the Egyptian chapter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel. He has long linked his Palestinian activism with opposition to authoritarian rule in the Arab world.

In a 2022 interview with The Associated Press after his release from an Egyptian jail, he described his activism — from Egypt’s 2011 pro-democracy uprising to his work with the Palestinian-led boycott movement against Israel — as “civil, nonviolent action against injustice, against inhumane treatment and against occupation as well as dictatorship.”

Shaath founded the Egyptian chapter of the BDS movement in 2014. He was arrested in Egypt in 2019 and released in January 2022, after more than 2 1/2 years in detention.

He said at the time that Egyptian authorities never formally charged him and that he had been held in a packed, bug-infested cell before later being isolated in a windowless room.

French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed Shaath’s release from Egyptian detention in 2022.

Shaath is married to a French citizen and has a French-Palestinian daughter.