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French MEP called to resign after "white race" claim

Xinhua, September 30, 2015 Adjust font size:

A petition has received over 45,000 signatures on Tuesday demanding the resignation of the Member of European Parliament (MEP) Nadine Morano who declared Saturday that France is a "judeo-christian country - General de Gaulle said it - of the white race, which accepts foreign people."

Yazid Knibiehly, the young web user from Strasbourg who created the petition on Change.org, declared himself to be "scandalized" by the claims of the MEP.

"First I felt insulted as a Franco-Algerian. I quickly observed that many people on social networks shared my indignation," explained the 17-year-old man.

The Mayor of Bordeaux, Alain Juppe, a candidate for the upcoming 2017 presidential elections, very quickly declared that Morano "has brought out a quotation from General de Gaulle which had been made in a radically different context."

Morano, for her part, denounced a "media lynching" and notably affirmed: "When I was in Ivory Coast, people speak of Black Africa, which shocks no one."

"I didn't know that the word race was forbidden from usage in the French language," she wrote in a statement published Monday evening. Endit