Rima Hassan says she removed the Israeli flag in Strasbourg and that the EU flag fell

French MEP Rima Hassan told the European Parliament on Tuesday that she had removed an Israeli flag from an exhibition marking the 7 October attacks, and that a European Union flag fell because she lost her balance. Parliament president Roberta Metsola had said, before the day's votes, that a member had been filmed on Monday evening apparently damaging the exhibition. Hassan, of France Unbowed and the Left group, answered from the floor that Metsola's account was factually false.

Hassan confirmed in a statement that she took the Israeli flag off its stand. She said she did not touch the EU flag, that neither flag was damaged, and that she had written to Metsola with her version. In the chamber she repeated the line: she did not touch the European flag. Parliament vice-president Pina Picierno accused her of trampling the flags. The two accounts, Metsola's film and Hassan's letter, are now the file.

The exhibition was organised ahead of the third anniversary of the Hamas-led attacks, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage. Hassan said it had been organised in partnership with the Israeli embassy. She defended her objection to an Israeli flag inside the Parliament and compared it to displaying a Russian flag during the war on Ukraine. That comparison is her argument. It is not a finding by the Parliament. It is the reason she has given for taking one flag down.

Metsola's phrase was apparently damaging. Hassan's phrase was removed, not damaged, and an accidental fall. The gap is what a disciplinary process would have to close. Parliament rules allow sanctions for serious breaches that run from a reprimand to the loss of daily allowances or a temporary suspension from some parliamentary activities. None of those has been imposed in the accounts of Tuesday's session. The president put the film on the record before votes. The member answered. The letter is in.

The timing is the same anniversary week that produced a ban on a Paris march and conditions on a London student procession. Strasbourg's version is an argument about an exhibition inside the chamber's building, not about a route through a city. A flag on a stand in a parliamentary exhibition is institutional property for the duration of the display. Taking it down is an act the president has treated as a breach and the member has treated as a political refusal. Picierno's accusation of trampling is a third description, stronger than Metsola's apparently damaging and flatly rejected by Hassan's claim that she did not touch the EU flag.

Hassan is a France Unbowed lawmaker. The party has been the sharpest French parliamentary critic of Israel since October 2023. Her comparison with a Russian flag is the sentence that will travel. It equates the presence of the Israeli flag at a 7 October exhibition with the presence of a Russian flag during the war on Ukraine. Metsola did not answer that comparison in the remarks reported from the pre-vote statement. She answered the film. The chamber therefore heard a disciplinary allegation and a foreign-policy argument in the same exchange, and they are not the same thing.

What happens next is a procedure, if the president opens one. A reprimand, a cut in allowances, or a temporary suspension are the steps the rules list. A letter from the member is the start of a defence, not the end of one. The exhibition remains the object: a display tied to the attacks, a partnership with the Israeli embassy that Hassan has cited, two flags, and a film from Monday evening. Wednesday is the anniversary itself. The Parliament's argument about the display has already been held, a day early, on the floor in Strasbourg.

Neither flag, on Hassan's account, was damaged. Metsola has not withdrawn the film or the phrase apparently damaging. Picierno has not withdrawn the trampling claim. Those three statements are the record of Tuesday. The sanction, if there is one, is not yet part of it.