French police on Thursday arrested European Parliament member Rima Hassan in Paris on suspicion of supporting terrorism, according to the newspaper Le Parisien, which also reported that synthetic drugs were found in her bag.

French-Palestinian MEP Rima Hassan was taken into police custody in France on Thursday for "apology for terrorism" after a post about Palestinian resistance, according to French media outlets.

On 26 March, the 33-year-old left-wing politician shared on X an article about Japanese pro-Palestinian activist Kozo Okamoto, a former member of the Japanese Red Army, who participated in an attack on Ben Gurion International Airport in Israel in 1972 that killed 26 passengers. She accompanied the retweet with a quote by Okamoto, saying: "I gave my youth to the Palestinian cause. As long as there is oppression, resistance is not only a right, it is a duty."

Far-right National Rally MP Matthias Renault filed a complaint with the Paris public prosecutor over the post. He argued that it "explicitly refers to a perpetrator of a terrorist attack, repeats a quote about him without any distancing or condemnation, but for inspirational purposes, and associates this figure with a normative justification of resistance presented as a duty".

Hassan later deleted the post but now faces charges of condoning acts of terrorism and potential drug offences, after a few grams of synthetic narcotics of unknown origin were reportedly found in her bag. She could now be brought before a judge, released or have her detention extended.