Palestinian flag raised over Lyon town hall despite French ban

The Palestinian flag was raised over Lyon’s town hall on Tuesday, Sept. 23, in defiance of a nationwide ban imposed by the French government, Anadolu reports.

The French Interior Ministry reported that 52 municipalities out of 34,875 had displayed the flag, despite clear instructions to prefects to prevent Palestinian flags from being hoisted on town halls and other public buildings. Other municipalities were reportedly planning to raise the flag later in the evening.

On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that his nation officially recognises the state of Palestine.

“I declare that today, France recognises the state of Palestine,” Macron said at an international conference on Palestine in New York ahead of the start of this week’s UN General Assembly.

The conference, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, follows up on a similar gathering in July.

The US and Israel did not attend the meeting.

The army forces maintained a presence in several neighbourhoods of Gaza City, as it announced on Sunday the entry of another armoured division into Gaza City to reinforce the forces already deployed there.

Israel launched Operation “Gideon Chariots 2” earlier this month, aiming at the complete occupation of Gaza City. Nearly 1 million Palestinians, most of them displaced from other parts of the enclave, remain trapped under relentless bombardment.

The Israeli army has killed over 65,300 Palestinians, most of them women and children, in Gaza since October 2023. The relentless bombardment has rendered the enclave uninhabitable and led to starvation and the spread of diseases.