(AFP) French President Emmanuel Macron’s party on Friday apologised for inviting to the Elysee Palace a comedian convicted of making death threats after his presence sparked an uproar on the right.
Conservative and far-right figures have been quick to make the link between Yassine Belattar, who they accuse of ties to Islamists, and Macron’s decision to stay away from Sunday’s nationwide march against anti-Semitism.
“I regret (the invitation) because I think he has no place being hosted by staff at the Elysee,” Sylvain Maillard, chief of Macron’s Renaissance party in the lower house of parliament, told broadcaster FranceInfo.
Weekly magazine L’Express reported two of Macron’s advisors met Belattar at the presidential palace last week to get a sense of views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in France’s troubled low-income suburbs.
