Paris will host a court hearing in October in which Rima Hassan, a 34‑year‑old French‑Palestinian member of the European Parliament for La France Insoumise, faces a charge of glorifying terrorism.

The charge stems from a repost made in March 2026 of a quotation attributed to Japanese militant Kōzō Okamoto, who participated in a 1972 attack on an Israeli airport. The statement asserted that when oppression exists resistance becomes both a right and a duty.

Hassan maintains that the complaint filed by the French state is a politically motivated attempt to curb her freedom of expression as an elected representative. She argues that parliamentary immunity is intended to protect the speech of MEPs and notes that no other European deputy has ever been prosecuted for a tweet.

Legal scholars point out that French anti‑terrorism statutes can be applied to speech that appears to praise violent acts, even when the source is a historical figure. Professor Claire Dubois of the University of Paris described the law as deliberately broad, granting prosecutors discretion to label any endorsement of resistance as extremist.

Hassan’s lawyer Julien Moreau contends that the quotation was shared as part of a wider debate on the Israel‑Palestine conflict, not as an endorsement of violence, and that the purpose was to illustrate the moral dilemma faced by peoples under oppression.

Born to Palestinian asylum‑seeker parents in a refugee camp in northern Syria and raised in France, Hassan was active in pro‑Palestinian and pro‑democracy protests before entering the European Parliament in 2024. Since the start of her term she reports having been subject to twenty‑two distinct legal actions, including a 2025 detention by Israeli forces while she attempted to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza aboard the Global Sumund flotilla, an incident that drew condemnation from several European NGOs.

She says she receives regular threats and is repeatedly labelled as a Hamas spokesperson and an anti‑Semite, a pattern she views as part of a broader effort to silence critics of the EU’s perceived role in the conflict.

In the European Parliament Hassan sits on the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Sub‑committee on Human Rights, where she pushes for stronger EU measures to protect civilians in occupied territories. Within La France Insoumise she leads a working group drafting an alternative to the Oslo‑based two‑state solution, planning to release a single‑state proposal in September and arguing that the two‑state approach has become a diplomatic impasse that obscures the ongoing occupation.

An unnamed senior EU diplomat warned that political courage to move beyond the Oslo paradigm is limited and that any shift could jeopardise the EU’s role as a mediator. Amnesty International Europe issued a statement saying that continued reliance on a two‑state narrative ignores the lived reality of Palestinians and hinders accountability for alleged war crimes. German Green MEP Anna Müller warned that parliamentary immunity safeguards democratic debate and that using anti‑terrorism statutes to silence a member over a historical quote would represent a dangerous step back for free speech in Europe. A spokesperson for the French interior ministry insisted that the law must be applied uniformly and that any statement that could be interpreted as praising terrorism should be investigated.

If the court confirms the charge, the case could establish a precedent that restricts MEPs’ ability to comment on contentious foreign‑policy topics. The European Parliament’s legal service said it will follow the case closely and cautioned that any erosion of immunity might affect deputies’ capacity to scrutinise government actions. The hearing is expected to attract civil‑society organisations, legal academics and fellow MEPs, and could influence how far European legislators can critique foreign policy without facing criminal charges, with possible repercussions for the EU’s willingness to reconsider the two‑state paradigm.