Europe1.fr with AFP 1:54 p.m., May 10, 2022

Taha Bouhafs announced Tuesday to withdraw his candidacy for the legislative elections in Vénissieux.

At the heart of a controversy after his conviction in the fall of 2021 to a fine of 1,500 euros, in particular for public insult for having treated the police unionist Linda Kebab of "Arab service", the journalist decided to throw in the towel .

Another hitch in the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes): militant journalist Taha Bouhafs, supported by LFI, withdrew his candidacy for the legislative elections in Vénissieux (Rhône) on Tuesday, denouncing "unprecedented attacks", while the constituency is coveted by the PCF.

LFI officials have been tireless for the past two weeks to defend this controversial candidacy, and confirmed on Sunday, in the 14th district of the Rhône where the communist mayor of Vénissieux Michèle Picard wants to run.

Taha Bouhafs, 25, finally threw in the towel in a statement on Twitter overnight from Monday to Tuesday.

"I underestimated the power of this system when it wants to crush you", he writes, believing that "in the eyes of many", it has "no right to exist politically".

"I was supported, not enough to hold on, but enough to be grateful. (...) Keep fighting. For my part, I tried but I can't do it anymore," he concludes.

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Former LFI presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon reacted by denouncing "a pack (which) fought against him" with "death threats and daily public questioning".

"I blame myself for not having been able to comfort him as much as necessary," he added.

At the heart of the criticisms that rained down on Taha Bouhafs, his conviction in the fall of 2021 to a fine of 1,500 euros, in particular for public insult for having treated the police unionist Linda Kebab of "Arab service" - a conviction which he made call.

A "collective failure"

His career was also targeted more broadly, from his commitment against the government or Islamophobia, to his rigor as a journalist who could have been undermined, as when in April 2018, during the occupation of the Paris campus of Tolbiac, he relayed on Twitter the false information of the death of a student after a police intervention.

A few days later, on May 1, 2018, he was the only one to film Alexandre Benalla assaulting a couple of protesters at Place de la Contrescarpe in the capital.

At LFI, number two Adrien Quatennens and deputy Alexis Corbière both made a "statement of failure" on Tuesday, while deputy Clémentine Autain denounced "the injustice, the violence of the attacks from the far right, relayed ad nauseam in the media, by the macronie and even in certain ranks on the left, against a young man without a diploma, from working-class neighborhoods and immigration".

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It is in any case a new thorn in the side of the new alliance on the left bringing together LFI, EELV, PS and PCF for the legislative elections in June.

The national secretary of EELV Julien Bayou deplored "a collective failure".

Only a few days after a forceps agreement with the leadership of the PS, which sparked the ire of socialist figures and possible dissidence, it was Monday the turn of the national secretary of the PCF Fabien Roussel to oppose the candidacy of Taha Bouhafs.

"We're not going to get out of this"

Adrien Quatennens assured on Tuesday that LFI had not lobbied for the withdrawal of Taha Bouhafs, and that he would have "not a word against" LFI's "partners" in the new People's Union.

But "if both of us start to analyze and decide for our partners who their candidates are, we are not going to get out of it," he said, targeting the leader of the Communists.

Despite the withdrawal of Taha Bouhafs, the tension does not fall.

Welcoming that "reason prevailed", Michèle Picard and the Communists of the 14th district immediately returned to the charge and called in a press release to "now recognize" the mayor of Vénissieux "as the candidate who can bring together all the left" facing the outgoing LREM deputy Yves Blein.

“Obviously, it is La France insoumise which will choose its candidacy on this constituency and no one else”, replied dryly in a tweet Manuel Bompard, the campaign director of Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

And Alexis Corbière to insist: "there will be a candidate from La France insoumise".