French Jewish philosopher and writer Bernard-Henri Levy left Tunisia on Sunday after protesters demonstrated against his visit.
According to videos posted on social networks, dozens of protesters were waiting at Tunis Carthage international ariport airport early Saturday waving placards reading ‘’Go away’, ‘’ No Zionist interests on Tunisian soil.’’
The protesters accused him of being motivated by a ‘’hatred against Arabs and Muslims.’’ ‘’It is not today that we they will allow a notorious Zionist to stick his nose in their business,’’ said one of the protesters, according to Tunisian media. Actor Lotfi Abdelli, very popular in Tunisia, was among the protesters who wore Palestinian flags.
Tunisian Foreign Minister Mongi Hamdi, assured that his ministry was not aware of the visit and the country’s presidency issued a statement denying informations that President Moncef Marzouki had invited Levy.
Actor Lotfi Abdelli, very popular in Tunisia, was among the protesters who wore Palestinian flags.
Upon his return to France on Sunday, Bernard-Henri Levy firmly denied all rumors propagated in Tunisian media that he had been invited to Tunis by radical Islamists.
He told French weekly Magazine Le Point that the purpose of his visit was ‘’to have a meeting in a hotel, openly and transparently, with Libyan friends who had come expressly from Tripoli, Benghazi, Misrata, Zawifa, and towns in Jebel Nafusa to hold a dialogue of national reconciliation on neutral ground with me’’.
He also denied that he was thrown out of the country. ‘’Il left the country when my meeting was over,’’, denouncing an ‘’anti-Semitic conspiracy’’ by the extreme-left which accuses him of a ‘’Zionist conspiracy.’’
Contacted by AFP, the spokesman of the Tunisian ministry of foreign affairs, Mokhtar Chaouachi, declined to comment on the visit and the event.