“Freedom of expression” pleads Tour de France protester facing prison time

Nearly two months after stage 11 of the Tour de France was thrown into chaos, the man behind the protest has been given a court date. Amine Messal, a student at the École Normale Supérieure in Toulouse, will stand trial on November 19. His interruption came on a day when the race itself was already dramatic, with Tadej Pogacar recovering from a late crash and Jonas Abrahamsen sealing his first Tour stage win. The intervention of a security guard prevented Messal’s action from turning into a dangerous clash with riders.

Messal ran onto the road in Toulouse wearing a white T-shirt that read “Israel out of the Tour,” aiming to draw attention to the conflict in Palestine. The 23-year-old later explained, “It was a space of freedom of expression that I wanted to take. I was looking at the screen and I told myself that I had to come in long enough before the runners so that they could see me, so that they could predict my trajectory and that I would stay on the right. That way, it wouldn't put them in danger.”

He described how carefully he had timed the protest. “When they were 300 meters away, I jumped over the barrier, took off my first t-shirt and ran to the finish line. It happened almost exactly as I had planned. During my race, the runners caught up with me. I arrived at the finish line almost at the same time as them. Obviously, if the peloton had arrived in a group, I wouldn't have done it. We're not here to endanger the lives of the runners, or mine for that matter,” he said.

The incident unfolded as Mathieu van der Poel chased Jonas Abrahamsen and Mauro Schmid in the closing kilometers, while Pogacar crashed three minutes back in the peloton. Abrahamsen ultimately edged Schmid in a sprint, with Van der Poel crossing seven seconds later.

Messal’s protest has taken on added weight after events at the Vuelta a España this week. Stage 11 was disrupted in Bilbao by large numbers of anti-Israel demonstrators, forcing organizers to neutralise the final. Times were recorded three kilometers from the finish, and no stage winner was declared, and so the anger directed at the Israel–Premier Tech team continues to be a flashpoint across cycling’s grand tours.