Palestinian activist Ramy Shaath is facing deportation from France after authorities deemed his presence a "serious threat to public order", his lawyer told AFP on Friday.
Shaath, 54, was a prominent figure of the 2011 uprising in Egypt and the coordinator of the country's chapter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
He spent 900 days in detention in Egypt between 2019 and 2022 before he was released and allowed to leave for France, a decision French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed at the time.
"The Nanterre prefecture has notified us that it intends to initiate deportation proceedings," Shaath's lawyer, Damia Taharraoui, said, referring to the western Paris suburb.
The prefecture's notice, seen by AFP, cites his links to "figures of the Palestinian cause in France" and organisations including Urgence Palestine -- which he co-founded after Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war -- as grounds for opening deportation proceedings.
