On 6 June 2024, Al-Haq, Action Sécurité EthiqueRépublicaines, Urgence Palestine, Stop Arming Israel and the Association France Palestine Solidarité, filed an emergencyinterim injunction in France. The action aims to prevent COGES, the organisers of the ‘EUROSATORY 2024: The Global Event for Defence and Security’, from allowing the participation of 74 Israeli arms exhibitors, to prevent violations of international law. Our organisations are seeking an interim injunction under article 835 of the French Code of Civil Procedure, to prevent imminent damage and to put an end to a manifestly unlawful disturbance, stemming from the breach of Palestinian rights. The organisations have been entitled by French judges to subpoena COGES in a hearing which will be held on the 13 June 2024.

Israel currently stands in violation of three orders issued by the International Court of Justice on January 26, March 28 and May 24, 2024, recognizing the plausibility of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza and ordering a cessation of genocidal acts and the immediate halt to Israel’s military offensive, amongst others. Our organisations further note that despite UN Security Council Resolution 2728 which mandated “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire during the month of Ramadan” which was intended to lead to “a lasting ceasefire”, the death toll is rising daily in Palestine –– to date, 36,050 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, at least half of them women and children in Gaza, over 85,000 wounded in Gaza and the West Bank, and the number of people buried under rubble has reached 10,000 Palestinians in Gaza. Israel is also restricting humanitarian aid, creating an extremely alarming state of famine and infectious disease.

Faced with this humanitarian crisis of unprecedented gravity, judicial and governmental bodies in Belgium, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, and have already taken steps to measures to ban all or part of arms exports to Israel. Yet, France is allowing EUROSATORY, the “world's largest land and air-land defense and security show”, to welcome manufacturers from all over the world to Villepinte, Seine-Saint-Denis, from June 17 to 21, to present their latest products (missiles, machine guns, tanks, etc.). By Friday, 31 May 2024, some 74Israeli exhibitors, the main suppliers to the country's army, were registered for the show, boasting that their weapons had been tested “on the battlefield” in Palestine.

On 24 May 2024, in the face of this critical and overwhelmingemergency and in line with the Stop Arming Israel France and Urgence Palestine campaigns, a coalition of organizations sent the show organizer COGES (a subsidiary of GICAT, the French arms companies' union) an interpellated summons supported by over thirty organizations, to justify within eightdays the measures taken to prevent the sale or purchase of weapons likely to be used in crimes committed in Palestine,and to prevent the EUROSATORY from strengthening the economic power of companies likely to participate in these crimes.

Thanks to the pressure exerted by the complementarity of these mobilizations, the COGES and the Ministry of the Armed Forces announced on Friday, 31 May 2024 that there would be no Israeli defense industry stand at the show. 

While this decision is a first victory, the COGES did not explicitly prohibit access to the show by Israeli delegations, including the Israeli Defense Minister, against whom an arrest warrant has been requested by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. The presence at the show of these delegations or any intermediaries would enable them to enter into relationships that would strengthen the Israeli army for years to come, particularly with allied delegations and exhibitors such as those from the United States, which granted an additional $14 billion in aid to Israel in February. American companies are said to supply 68 percent of the weapons imported to Israel, with the remainder largely supplied by the Germans.

Reinforced in its positions by the decision to ban Israeli exhibitors from the show, our coalition is therefore filing a petition with the interim relief judge to enjoin COGES to take, prior to the show, the necessary measures to prevent the risk of imminent damage or manifestly unlawful disturbances, and in particular:

— a ban on entry or participation in any form whatsoever at the show by Israeli delegations, political, military and industrial leaders from the Israeli arms industry, or any natural or legal person who might act as their intermediary;

— a ban on any link during the show between participants who have delivered or contributed to the delivery of arms to Israel since the beginning of October, now or in the future, and Israeli delegations if they were not banned;

— a ban on all Israeli companies exhibiting at the show, or companies with links (joint ventures, subsidiaries, subcontractors, co-contractors, etc.) to Israeli companies;

— a ban on other companies or exhibitors welcoming representatives of Israeli companies to their stands, selling Israeli weapons through them, or in any way facilitating the intermediation of these companies with delegations attending the show;

— the written and signed undertaking by any visitor or exhibitor, as a prerequisite to any participation in the show, that they will not enter into any relationship that might contribute to the policy pursued by Israel towards Palestine and the Occupied Territories (OPT), or of any legal or natural person contributing to this policy;

— the provision of exhibitor and visitor lists, and the publication of decisions.

Coalition associations/collectives:

The summons was issued by 

• the NGO ASER, http://aser-asso.org

This action was born out of the work of a coalition of some twenty collectives, lawyers, jurists and non-jurists, including: 

• Urgence Palestine https://urgence-palestine.com/

• Stop Arming Israel France https://www.instagram.com/stoparmingisraelfrance/

• AFPS (Association France Palestine Solidarité) https://www.france-palestine.org/

• Stop Fuelling War https://stopfuellingwar.org/fr/

The coalition is represented by lawyers Dominique Cochainand Matteo Bonaglia.

Civil society associations/collectives supporting the legal action: 

• Amis de la Terre France 

• Association des Sahraouis en France 

• Association de Solidarité Interpeuples

• Assemblée féministe Paris Banlieue 

• Charente Palestine Solidarité 

• Collectif Judeo Arabe et Citoyen pour la Palestine (CJACP) 

• Collectif Palestine Nord Essonne 

• Collectif 69 de soutien au peuple Palestinien 

• Juifs Arabes Musulmans (UD-AJM)

• Justice Sans Frontiere (JSF) 

• TEJE (Travailler Ensemble Jeunes et Engagé·e·s) 

• Unitedvoices_unitedaswat (UV_UA) 

• Union Décoloniale

Associations/collectives or individuals who signed the press release announcing the summons: 

• Action Justice Climat

• Al-Haq 

• Alofa Tuvalu 

• Attac France 

• Avocats pour la justice au Proche Orient 

• BAOBAB 16 -BDS Provence 

• Collectif des Elèves Avocat.e.s Solidaires avec la Palestine (CEASP) 

• Comité Palestine de Jussieu 

• DAL16 

• Emancipation, tendance intersyndicale 

• Europalestine

• FIDH 

• FSU 

• Fondation Danielle Mitterrand 

• Kessem

• féministes Juives décoloniales

• Ligue des Juristes pour la Paix 

• Le Bruit Qui Court 

• Les Rayonnantxes

• Mouvement pour une Alternative Non-violente (MAN) 

• Le Mouvement de la Paix 

• TEJE (Travailler Ensemble Jeunes et Engagé·e·s) 

• Terres de Luttes -Union Juive française pour la paix 

• Citoyennetés pour la paix de Colombie-France 

• Collectif Palestine de Créteil –

• AFPS 

• Collectif Palestine du biterrois pour une paix juste/Béziers 

• The Liberation March (TLM) 

• Tsedek!

• Union Syndicale Solidaires 

• Union Syndicale Solidaires Ariège 

• Utopia 56

Press contacts: 

— Benoit Muracciole of ASER, an association specializing in the use and transfer of arms under international law: [email protected];

— Urgence Palestine: the Collectif Urgence Palestine brings together citizens, organizations and associations, trade unions and political movements working for the self-determination of the Palestinian people: [email protected];

— Stop Arming Israel France, a collective formed in November 2023 in response to a call from over 30 Palestinian trade unions for countries complicit with Israel to “end all complicity - stop arming Israel”: [email protected]