Translated and edited by ECF from LDH Newsletter
From 18-20 May 2024, the LDH brought together its delegates, representing sections, federations and regional committees, for its 92nd national congress in Bordeaux.
We would like to thank you all for taking part, and in particular the activists from the Bordeaux section and the wider Nouvelle-Aquitaine region who helped to ensure that the congress ran smoothly!
Resolutions
The LDH adopted a general resolution entitled ‘For a democratic, social and ecological alternative’. Through this resolution, the LDH proposes to be a common and open table that will bring together the various trade union, associative and political forces, in order to create a united political alternative capable of defeating the extreme right at the ballot box for the 2026 municipal elections and the 2027 presidential election.
The conference closed with a round-table discussion, attended by a large number of associative and trade union partners, to get this joint work underway.
A second congress resolution calls for a just and lasting peace between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples in accordance with international law.
On 7 October 2023, Hamas militias carried out a terrorist incursion into Israel and massacred around 1,200 men, women and children, while taking around 240 hostages. In the wake of these atrocities committed against civilians, the Israeli government and its army introduced collective punishment of unprecedented violence, affecting the entire population of Gaza. In the face of this escalation of violence, the LDH has adopted this emergency resolution aimed in particular at reiterating the need to put an end to the permanent impunity enjoyed by the State of Israel through dissuasive and preventive sanctions – for which France would be honoured to play a leading role – and also its full commitment to a just and lasting peace between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, in accordance with international law.
Focus on the situation in New Caledonia
A focus was placed on New Caledonia, with a speech by Henri Leclerc, Honorary President of the LDH, who was the lawyer of Ouvéa activists and who worked with Michel Tubiana for the peaceful resolution of the conflict leading to the signing of the Matignon agreements in 1988. Gérard Sarda, President of the Ligue des droits de l’Homme et du citoyen de Nouvelle-Calédonie, also attended the conference and spoke about current events in Nouméa.
Read the joint statement by the French and New Caledonian LDHs: the urgent need for a return to calm in New Caledonia through the resumption of dialogue
Elections
At the end of the congress, the renewed National Committee elected the National Bureau. Nathalie Tehio is president, Lionel Brun-Valicon is treasurer, Arié Alimi, Vincent Rebérioux and Evelyne Sire-Marin are vice-presidents, Emmanuelle Jourdan-Chartier, Isabeau Le Bourhis and Franck Merlin-Anglade are members of the general secretariat, and Pierre-Antoine Cazau, Sophie Giroud, Barbara Romagnan and Jan Robert Suesser are members of the bureau.
The Congress elected Patrick Baudouin Honorary Chairman by acclamation.