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Eiffel Tower Palestinian flag stunt prompts arrests

French police took six people into custody as a climate activist group took responsibility, accusing Israel of “ecocide crimes.”

Members of the activist group Extinction Rebellion Paris unfurl a large Palestinian flag from the Eiffel Tower in Paris on May 15, 2026. Photo by Antoine Berlioz/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images.
Members of the activist group Extinction Rebellion Paris unfurl a large Palestinian flag from the roof of a restaurant on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower in Paris on May 15, 2026. Photo by Antoine Berlioz/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images.

French police arrested six people suspected of unfurling a large Palestinian flag from the Eiffel Tower without permission, a police source said on Saturday.

The climate activist group Extinction Rebellion France said it hung the flag from the Paris monument’s first floor on Friday to show support for Palestinians and accuse Israel of “massacres” in Gaza and “ecocide crimes,” including uprooting olive trees in Judea and Samaria, AFP reported.

The action was timed for “Nakba Day,” observed annually on May 15 to mark the Arab rejection of the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan and the 1948-49 war launched by Arab states in an effort to destroy the newly revived State of Israel.

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