The pro-Palestine demonstrator who ran onto the finishing straight at the end of stage 11 of this year’s Tour de France in Toulouse has escaped with a warning and suspended €300 by a court in France, after the protester insisted that he was “careful” not to put any riders in danger.
The Extinction Rebellion activist, a 26-year-old Master’s student, made headlines around the world in July when he vaulted over the barriers in the final 100 metres and ran alongside breakaway riders Mauro Schmid and Jonas Abrahamsen as they sprinted for the win on stage 11 of the 2025 Tour de France.
Wearing a keffiyeh, the headscarf which has become symbol of Palestinian culture, and a T-shirt emblazoned with the handwritten slogan ‘Israel out of the Tour’, the protester’s decision to disrupt the Tour’s visit to Toulouse formed part of a series of demonstrations against the Israel-Premier Tech team’s involvement in cycling’s biggest race amid the ongoing war in Gaza.
As the 26-year-old ran down the finishing straight, just metres away from eventual stage winner Abrahamsen, he was tackled by ASO staff member Stéphane Boury into the crowd and later arrested by French police.
At his court hearing on Tuesday in Toulouse, reported by newspaper La Dépêche, the activist was accused of trespassing at a sports venue, as prosecutors sought a €500 fine and a two-year ban from sporting events.
Emphasising the dangers of jumping onto the road during a race like the Tour, the prosecutor told the campaigner: “Bursting at full speed into a rider’s field of vision is a real danger. Freedom of expression cannot happen at the risk of other people’s safety.”
However, the 26-year-old pointed out that nobody was injured during his protest, claiming that he had been “very careful” and had planned not to go anywhere near the riders or disrupt the race.
“I made sure to check on the screen that the riders were far enough apart,” he said. “I ran along the barriers to ensure that no one was injured. I used to be an athlete: I know how essential safety is.”
The student also told the hearing that his goal was simply to spread his group’s political message and their campaign against Israel-Premier Tech’s presence at the Tour.
“I wanted to denounce the fact that a team proclaiming itself an ambassador of Israel was allowed to participate in the Tour de France,” he said.
“Politically speaking, that objective was reached. The idea was to get people talking about the people of Gaza and what is going on there.”
The lawyer for the defence, Claire Dujardin, also told the court: “In Spain, the public can display banners and placards; in France, a symbolic gesture is penalised. My client did not disturb public order or the course of the race.”
In the end, the 26-year-old was found guilty but escaped with a warning, the judge handing him suspended a €300 fine. This suspended penalty was €50 less, incidentally, than the fine issued to the spectator who spat at Mathieu van der Poel during this year’s E3 Saxo Classic.
Following the course invasion in Toulouse, the city’s branch of climate protest group Extinction Rebellion claimed responsibility for the demonstration, which they said was carried out “to denounce Tour de France’s complicity in the genocide”, accusing the race of “helping restore the image of the Israeli colonial regime” by allowing Israel-Premier Tech to participate.
XR Toulouse also criticised the team’s billionaire owner Sylvan Adams, a vocal supporter of Israel, claiming that Israel-Premier Tech was created with the aim of “bleaching the image of the Israeli colonial regime.”
“Neutrality does not exist. Not acting in a situation of oppression is like taking the side of the oppressor,” the group said in a statement.
In response, Israel-Premier Tech said at the time that it “respects everyone’s right to free speech” but “absolutely condemns any protests or actions of individuals that interfere with racing at the Tour de France or threaten the safety of the peloton.”
The team added: “We continue to work closely with race organisers and relevant parties to ensure that any protests do not jeopardise team members’ safety, nor impact racing, or our right to participate.”
Unlike other teams in the professional peloton, such as UAE Team Emirates, Israel-Premier Tech, as it was known until this month, was not officially state-owned, instead being primarily funded by Canadian-Israeli billionaire Sylvan Adams, though the team has received some financial backing from Israel’s ministry for tourism.
Meanwhile, Adams – who attended Donald Trump’s inauguration, encouraged US attacks on Iran in June, and called on Israel to “finish the job” in Gaza – has previously described the team as “ambassadors” for Israel and a means of promoting a “more realistic vision” of modern Israel.
The pro-Palestine protest in Toulouse followed similar demonstrations at the Tour Down Under and the Giro d’Italia, with a Giro stage in Naples disrupted by activists running onto the road, on that occasion in front of a charging peloton.
Following the Tour, protests against Israel-Premier Tech continued to ramp up, coming to a crescendo a month and a half later at the Vuelta a España. The Spanish grand tour saw activists run onto the road, race routes blocked, clashes between police and protesters, and stages finishes abruptly cancelled, including on the final day in Madrid, where several mass protests spilled over into street violence.
Following the chaos at the Vuelta, and amid increasing safety concerns and pressure from sponsors, Israel-Premier Tech finally announced in October that it will rebrand for 2026, dropping ‘Israel’ from its name and changing the team’s nationality.
However, that belated rebranding decision has not proved enough to retain some of the squad’s key partners, with title sponsor Premier Tech and now Factor stepping away from the team, with Canadian manufacturing company Premier Tech describing their ongoing sponsorship of the team as “untenable”, regardless of any future name change.
It was also reported this week that the Canary Islands have refused to host the planned finale of next year’s Vuelta a España if the squad take part. Spanish newspaper AS reported that “the position of the Gran Canaria Island Council has not changed” on the team’s participation despite the upcoming rebrand, due to Adams’ continued role as owner.
8 thoughts on “‘Israel out of the Tour’ protester who disrupted Tour de France finish escapes with warning and suspended fine after telling court: “The idea was to get people talking about Gaza””
300 euros? Is that a typo? 3
300 euros? Is that a typo? 3,000 would be more adequate.
If he is short of money, I’ll
If he is short of money, I’ll pay it for him.
This is why people continue
This is why people continue to protest the genocide;
A series of Israeli attacks on Gaza City and Khan Younis yesterday (20 Nov) killed at least 33 Palestinians—including 12 children and 8 women—and injured 88. A family of five was killed when a strike hit a residential building in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood, while other attacks in the city left more than ten people dead. Additional strikes hit an UNRWA building west of Khan Younis, a group near the Shujaiya junction on Salah al-Din Street, and the Bulbul family home in Shujaiya, killing several more and injuring dozens. Israel attacks on Gaza remain ongoing despite the ceasefire.
and yesterday in the occupied West Bank – Security footage from the Christian Palestinian town of Taybeh shows Israeli settlers slashing car tires and smashing shop windows late Wednesday night. Taybeh has faced repeated attacks in recent months, prompting a July visit from U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee, an ordained pastor, who urged Israeli authorities to prosecute those responsible; no charges followed..
The conflict is bad but you
The conflict is bad but you’re doing nobody any favours with the sophism about genocide. Maximal solutions only keep people dying. It’s not you or your family you condemn to this but Palestinians.
Nighttrain123 wrote:
Are the United Nations, Amnesty International, Oxfam, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Medecins sans Fronitieres, B’Tselem (Israel), Boston, Cornell and Yale law schools, Physicians for Human Rights Israel and numerous others all guilty of sophistry as well?
Nighttrain123 wrote:
Surely condemning what appear to be the “maximal solutions” that either side felt they could get away with at a given time – *is* needed?
How on earth do people balance a real need to move on and deal with their bitter enemies… with the demands of justice – some kind of accounting and condemnation (at least recognition of) of previous harm? History shows that simply keeping shtum doesn’t seem to give lasting resolutions.
I would agree that it’s hard even contemplating that point when killing is still going on though.
There can only be maximal
There can only be maximal solutions if Israel is indeed this ‘evil’ genocidal state. The only solution is its elimination. There can be no negotiations with Nazis.
There have been atrocities on both sides. As far back as the early 19th century there were pogroms in the region, for example.
If we needed a full accounting of justice we’d never move fwd with our lives. How many unanswered slights and harms have most people suffered?
But It’s a conflict over territory and nothing more.
Nighttrain123 wrote:
That sounds like “show, don’t tell” there – illustrating exactly the black-and-white perspectives which make this “insoluble”.
I must go and refresh my memory but I don’t recall definitions of genocide saying it had to have been *completed*, or carried out within a certain short time?
And I’m not sure why bringing in the 19th C helps either – after all one could go back hundreds or even thousands of years in those parts and find people current folks claim as ancestors slaughtering each other. (Something which some of those making claims that they are the chosen / the land is do…)
On the (very slightly) optimistic side – that sir of “traumatic time-compression” * was visible in the North of Ireland / NI also.
And *some* violence-reduction has taken place there (still not “over” of course).
As for full accounting of justice – I was just noting its unlikely to be “every single thing” OR “nothing”. Just that the “address nothing” option has often been shown to not last.
Isn’t part of the function of “justice” the idea of not just addressing the particular concerns of those perpetrators and victims, or their immediate supporters, but society as a whole? A collective stating of “this is what happened, this is what it is, and we condemn it”
Of course that has been argued over since the start (Particularly the international application of same – “victors’ justice / meddling in some country’s purely internal affairs”)
Really?! I assume that’s extreme sarcasm?
(Of course it’s about territory – but as much about rights and status. Which are notably lacking for Palestinians there. And security which neither side feel they have. And I suspect the large numbers of very strongly religious folks on both sides – and some US Christians / arab Muslims – have some other opinions also…).
* Where people talk about eg. the killings of decades or even hundreds of years back as if they’d happened the other day.