Raphaël Enthoven at the Besançon Literary Festival: The philosopher regrets an "unfortunate" sentence about journalists from Gaza and will attend the festival to explain himself

"There are NO journalists in Gaza. Only killers, fighters, or hostage-takers with press cards," Raphaël Enthoven wrote on X on August 15.

Raphaël Enthoven, who was removed from the Besançon literary festival " Livres dans la Boucle " due to his comments about journalists in Gaza , will finally be able to participate , the city's mayor announced on Monday, September 8. The philosopher will attend the festival and will explain an " unfortunate " statement, he told France Inter on Tuesday.

" I should never have written the sentence: 'There are no journalists in Gaza,' " the philosopher acknowledges. " Even if Hamas fighters don't hesitate to wear press vests, even if dozens of pseudo-journalists there are actually cadres of the terrorist organization, even if it's difficult, impossible to work there without Hamas monitoring you, there are people there who are trying, at the risk of their lives, to practice their profession independently, and we must pay tribute to them ," he explains.

According to a tally by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), more than 210 journalists have been killed since the start of Israeli military operations in Gaza in retaliation for the October 7, 2023 attack by the Islamist movement Hamas.

" This sentence was unfortunate. It pointed to a problem which is precisely freedom of the press, and freedom of expression in Gaza. But it smacked of essentialization and it was done at the expense of particular cases which deserve to be honored ," he continues, wishing to go to the festival to " come back to this and say why I should not have written this sentence ."

On Thursday, September 4, the mayor of Besançon announced the cancellation of the philosopher and writer's program after his comments on X this summer. On Monday, after the indignant reactions of other authors, the Green mayor Anne Vignot finally announced that he would be welcome, but with " appropriate security ," denying that she had wanted to " censor " the essayist.