A French group of international lawyers has filed a report with the Paris public prosecutor accusing the country's top diplomat of disseminating false information about the United Nations' special rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese.
The Association of Lawyers for the Respect of International Law (Jurdi) said on Thursday that it had taken legal action following comments by France's foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, who called for Albanese's resignation earlier this week based on a misquoted version of her speech in Doha on 7 February.
Barrot had been responding to a question from Renaissance MP Caroline Yadan, who had previously wrongly accused Albanese of describing Israel as the "common enemy of humanity" during a virtual speech at the Al Jazeera Forum in the Qatari capital.
The UN expert has used the phrase "common enemy" twice in Doha speeches in February and December in the context of criticising the political, military and economic forces that have enabled and sustained Israel's genocidal war on Gaza.
"We now see that we as a humanity have a common enemy and the respect of fundamental freedoms is the last peaceful avenue, the last peaceful toolbox that we have to regain our freedom," Albanese said in remarks delivered remotely at the Al Jazeera Forum on 7 February.
