PARIS — French lawmakers erupted in turmoil last week when a member of Parliament from the far right interrupted a Black colleague’s speech about shipwrecked migrants in the Mediterranean by shouting, “Back to Africa!”
Grégoire de Fournas, and his far-right National Rally party, said he was talking about the boat carrying the migrants, and not his leftist colleague, Carlos Martens Bilongo. Both men are members of the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament.