UPDATE - French parliament adjourns over racial insult to Black lawmaker

ADDS INFORMATION

By Dilara Hamit

ANKARA (AA) - The French parliament adjourned a sitting Thursday after Black lawmaker Carlos Martens Bilongo was told to go back to Africa by a member of a far-right party.

Bilongo, a member of the left-wing France Insoumise party, was addressing the chamber when Gregoire de Fournas yelled, "Go back to Africa!" the party wrote on Twitter.

"The extreme right remains what it has always been, racist and nauseating. A corresponding sanction must be pronounced immediately," it added.

Bilongo was interrupted when he brought up the plight of 234 people who were saved by the Norwegian-flagged ship, Ocean Viking, after they were stranded in the Mediterranean for 11 days.

The session was adjourned by Parliament Speaker Yael Braun-Pivet after she declared, that given the gravity of the occurrence, the Parliamentary Bureau, which is in charge of overseeing the Assembly's overall operation and structure, will debate appropriate sanctions.

The New Ecological and Social People's Union (Nupes), a group of leftist and environmentalist parties, said it will demand the highest sanction for de Fournas in the Parliamentary Bureau, which will convene in an extraordinary manner Friday.

De Fournas disagreed, claiming when she said, "Go back to Africa," she was referring to the immigrant ship, not Bilongo.