PARIS — French MEP Rima Hassan has been cleared of wrongdoing after being accused of carrying illegal drugs, according to a statement from her party and the Paris prosecutor’s office.
“Scientific analyses have found no traces of synthetic drugs in the items seized from Rima Hassan,” the hard-left political party to which she belongs, France Unbowed, said in a statement Thursday.
Hassan, a member of The Left group in the European Parliament, was taken into police custody for questioning after posting a quote on X from far-left Japanese militant Kōzō Okamoto, who was convicted of a 1972 terrorist attack in Israel that killed 26 people. The MEP, who was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, has placed pro-Palestinian advocacy at the heart of her political work since being elected in 2024.
She is due to stand trial on July 7 on charges that her post quoting Okamoto constitutes an apology for terrorism.
French daily Le Parisien reported last week that “a few grams of synthetic drugs” had been found in Hassan’s handbag as she was being detained. The Paris prosecutor’s office said shortly after that a substance “resembling” 3-MMC — a common designer drug — had been identified, but that further tests were needed.
Hassan has consistently pushed back against the allegations, saying she had only carried cannabidiol (CBD) products that were legally purchased in Brussels. CBD is a chemical that is found in the cannabis plant but does not have the same intoxicating effects as tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.
Hassan’s lawyer, Vincent Brengarth, said a “toxicological analysis” had identified only a “negligible level” of THC. He added that it is “not uncommon for products marketed as CBD to contain traces of THC, since both molecules are extracted from the same plant.”
The Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed that a little more than 1 percent of THC had been found on the product presented as CBD — over the 0.3 percent legal threshold, but an insufficient amount to be considered a crime.
Hassan has since gone on the offensive.
On Wednesday, her lawyer announced that she had filed an initial complaint over a breach of confidentiality after French outlet Le Canard Enchaîné reported that a Justice Ministry spokesperson had been in contact with members of the press during Hassan’s questioning.
France Unbowed has also asked France’s media authority Arcom to intervene, arguing that the allegations were widely circulated in the French media and calling for “corrections to be published in all media outlets that contributed to the spread of this false information.”
France Unbowed and its presidential candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, have remained strongly supportive of Hassan.
