Juliette Binoche, Marion Cotillard and Jacques Audiard are amongst 500 French cinema professionals to have signed an open letter in assist of a silent march for peace in Paris this Sunday.
The initiative – created in response to the Israel-Hamas battle and its ongoing reverberations world wide – is being spearheaded by the newly launched Une Autre Voix (Another Voice) collective.
“This fratricidal war affects us all, and regardless of our reasons or affinities on each side of the wall, we want it to cease and that both peoples finally live in peace,” reads the letter.
“This is why we are organizing a silent, united, humanist and peaceful march that will open with a single long white banner. No political claims nor slogans. White flags, white handkerchiefs are welcome.”
Belgian-Moroccan actress Lubna Azabal (The Blue Cafta, Tel Aviv On Fire) presides over the Une Autre Voix collective which additionally options French actress and director Julie Gayet and screenwriter Baya Kasmi in addition to Lebanese-Canadian dramatist Wajdi Mouawad (Incendies) amongst his racks.
Further signatories of the letter embrace Mona Achache, Sofia Alaoui, Jeanne Balibar, Emmanuelle Bercot, Sami Bouajila, Laure Calamy, François Cluzet, Abdel Raouf Dafri, Grégory Gadebois, Michel Hazanavicious, Tewfik Jallab, Olga Kurylenko, Alexandra Lamy, Fabrice de La Patelliere, Mélanie Laurent, Charlotte le Bon, Virginie Ledoyen, Claude Lelouch, Jalil Lespert, Kad Merad and Elsa Zylberstein to call however a number of.
The march will fall six weeks after lethal Hamas terror assaults on Southern Israel on October 7, which killed 1,200 individuals and resulted in additional than 240 individuals being taken hostage and brought to the Gaza Strip.
Since then, an Israeli navy marketing campaign on Gaza, aimed toward wiping out Hamas and getting the hostages again, has killed greater than 11,500 individuals, in line with figures from the Hamas-run well being authority, and displaced 70% of the two.3 million inhabitants.
“Two peoples have been taken hostage by policies that we cannot master, which exceed our understanding and of which we are powerless witnesses,” learn the open letter.
Over the course of final weekend, Paris performed host to 2 protests sparked by the battle, the primary on Saturday referred to as for a ceasefire in Gaza, the second was towards anti-Semitism in response to a surge in anti-Semitic acts throughout France since October 7.
“An immense wave of hatred is gradually settling and every day anti-Semitic and Islamophobic acts and violence of all kinds arise in our lives. The words ‘choice’ and ‘clan’ are imposed on us: ‘Choose your clan!’,” commented the open letter.
“But when death strikes, we do not cry or rejoice according to our place of birth. We remain silent, we pray, we cry with our loved ones, we have compassion, we are human. To this mandate to choose a camp to hate, it is urgent to make another voice heard: A voice of union,” it continued.
The march is because of kick off at 2pm CET on Sunday from the Institut du Monde Arabe on the Paris Left Bank.
Read the open letter and listing of signatories right here