PARIS: More than 150 European ex-diplomats and lawmakers on Wednesday urged France’s foreign minister to retract “inaccurate” comments about a UN expert on Palestinians rights who he wants to resign.

France and Germany have called for Francesca Albanese to step down over remarks in which she referred to a “common enemy of humanity” after criticising “most of the world” and the media for enabling Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza.

Critics and Israel have accused the UN Special Rapporteur of referring to Israel as a “common enemy”, while Albanese has denounced this as a “manipulation” and “completely false”.

In response to a question about the comments, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot on Feb 11 told parliament she should step down.

In an open letter, the former diplomats criticised what they called “the use of inaccurate and manipulated elements to discredit a holder of an independent UN mandate”.

They called on Barrot to “retract his inaccurate statements about Ms Albanese and correct them.”

“This controversy must not divert attention from the massacres of civilians, nor from the humanitarian crisis and the massive human rights violations taking place in Gaza,” said the signatories.

The letter, written in French, was signed by mostly former foreign ministers and diplomats from the Netherlands.

More than a dozen current members of parliament and senators from Europe were also among the signatories, along with a former foreign minister of South Africa.

Columbia University activist

A US immigration judge has blocked the deportation of a Palestinian graduate student who helped organize protests at Columbia University against Israel’s war in Gaza, according to US media reports.

Mohsen Mahdawi was arrested by immigration agents last year as he was attending an interview to become a US citizen. Mahdawi had been involved in a wave of demonstrations that gripped several major US university campuses.

Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2026