Leïla Shahid, in Alès, France, in March 2022. PATRICE TERRAZ
In the minutes after the announcement of Leïla Shahid's death on Wednesday, February 18, at the age of 76, her admirers from Palestine, France and beyond posted a flood of commemorative photos on social media. Not the usual selfies meant to spruce up a LinkedIn résumé, but moments of real life, family gatherings and wide, beaming smiles. These messages of sorrow, but also gratitude, signed by compatriots and fellow travelers alike, spoke to the unique aura that surrounded Shahid.
The former representative of Palestine in France (1993-2006) and to the European Union (2006-2015) – a period during which she became a familiar figure on French television – was much more than a diplomat. A woman of conviction and dialogue, who counted many artists and intellectuals among her close friends, passionate about her cause but sensitive to all forms of injustice, a formidable debater feared by her Israeli counterparts yet uncompromising on the question of antisemitism, Shahid was a great lady, the great lady of Palestine.
But she, who devoted her life to defending her people and her land, pouring an uncommon life force into that mission, carried many hidden scars. The destruction of the Gaza Strip, following the bloody attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7, 2023, plunged her into a depression from which she never managed to recover. Shahid ended her life at her home in La Lèque, in the southern Gard department, not far from Uzès, where she lived with her husband, the Moroccan novelist Mohamed Berrada. The couple had no children.
