Ramy Shaath, a Palestinian-Egyptian activist and academic, risks deportation from France after first having been welcomed by Emmanuel Macron and made an honorary citizen of Nanterre. The authorities believe that his pro-Palestinian activism constitutes a «serious threat to public order».
Shaath (54) is the son of the former Palestinian politician Nabil Shaath. He has been an advisor to Yasser Arafat and was a central figure in Egypt during the Arab Spring in 2011. He was a member of the liberal El-Dostour party and coordinator for the BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions). For many years he has been a prominent critic of both Israel’s «occupation» and the Egyptian authorities.
Honorary citizen of Nanterre in 2021
In July 2019 Shaath was arrested in Egypt and held in detention for over 900 days for supporting «terrorist groups», but was never formally charged. After international pressure he was released in January 2022. He was then stripped of his Egyptian citizenship and deported to France where his French wife Céline Lebrun-Shaath and their daughter live.
President Macron personally engaged in the case. He raised it with Egypt’s president el-Sisi and publicly welcomed Shaath when he arrived in Paris. Nanterre granted him honorary citizenship in 2021.
Since October 2023 and the war in Gaza, Shaath has been highly active through the organisation Urgence Palestine. He has given speeches, participated in demonstrations and strongly criticised Israel’s conduct of the war – among other things he calls it «genocide», he supports a one-state solution (From the river to the sea) and has called for international intervention.
Threat to public order
The Nanterre prefecture believes he constitutes a threat to public order. They refer to his speeches, connections to other pro-Palestinian figures and anti-Zionists.
Shaath rejects this as political persecution, «McCarthyism» directed against Palestinian activism and argues that none of his statements have led to a conviction.
Yesterday, 21 May, Shaath was summoned to a deportation committee in Nanterre. The committee does not recommend deportation of Shaath as he «does not constitute a sufficient threat to public order» to be expelled. The recommendation is praised by Amnesty France, but it is only advisory and the prefecture in Nanterre may choose to ignore it and carry out the expulsion at short notice.
– The French judiciary defends the worst Islamofascists and France’s enemies. Judges from the far left are no myth. A commission consisting of three judges rejects the expulsion of the Palestinian activist Ramy Shaath, comments Causeur de la République:
La justice française défend les pires fascistes islamistes ennemis de la France.
Les juges d’extrême-gauche n’est pas un mythe 😡.
Une commission de trois juges se prononce contre l’expulsion du militant palestinien Ramy Shaath https://t.co/sVfuL4lPfp
— Causeur de la République (@Republique_Laic) May 22, 2026
Shaath, who has a French family, cannot simply be sent to Gaza or Egypt and risks ending up in a legal grey zone.
Publicly welcomed by Macron upon his arrival in Paris
Emmanuel Macron, who was strongly engaged in 2021–2022 to secure Shaath’s release from Egyptian prison and welcomed him to France, has conspicuously not made any public statement on the deportation case. The same applies to the interior minister and the government – which is typical: the government lets lower-level administrative authorities handle sensitive cases in order to avoid political responsibility.
Shaath has, together with supporters, launched the anti-deportation campaign #FreeRamyShaath2.