President Emmanuel Macron says France will recognise a Palestinian state in September at the United Nations General Assembly, adding he hopes it will help bring peace to the region.Mr Macron made the announcement on Thursday in a post on X.
“The urgent thing today is that the war in Gaza stops and the civilian population is saved,″ he wrote.
The French president offered support for Israel after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks and frequently spoke out against antisemitism.
But he has grown increasingly frustrated about Israel’s war in Gaza, especially in recent months.
″Given its historic commitment to a just and sustainable peace in the Middle East, I have decided that France will recognise the state of Palestine,” Mr Macron posted.
“Peace is possible.”
He also posted a letter he sent to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas about the decision.
Israel condemns move
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned Mr Macron’s decision, saying that such a move “rewards terror and risks creating another Iranian proxy”.
“A Palestinian state in these conditions would be a launch pad to annihilate Israel — not to live in peace beside it,” Mr Netanyahu said in a post on X.
“Let’s be clear: the Palestinians do not seek a state alongside Israel; they seek a state instead of Israel.”
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz described the move as “a disgrace and a surrender to terrorism”, adding that Israel would not allow the establishment of a “Palestinian entity that would harm our security, endanger our existence”.
Most powerful European country to recognise Palestine
France is the biggest and most powerful European country to recognise Palestine.
More than 140 countries recognise a Palestinian state, including more than a dozen in Europe.
Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand are among the countries that do not formally recognise the state of Palestine.
France has Europe’s largest Jewish population and the largest Muslim population in western Europe, and fighting in the Middle East often spills over into protests or other tensions in France.
France’s foreign minister is co-hosting a conference at the UN next week about a two-state solution.
Last month, Mr Macron expressed his “determination to recognise the state of Palestine”, and has pushed for a broader movement toward a two-state solution in parallel with recognition of Israel and its right to defend itself.
Ceasefire talks cut short
Thursday’s announcement came soon after the US cut short Gaza ceasefire talks in Qatar, saying Hamas was not showing good faith.
Momentum has been building against Israel in recent days.
Earlier this week, France and more than two dozen mostly European countries condemned Israel’s restrictions on aid shipments into the territory and the killings of hundreds of Palestinians trying to reach food.
The Palestinians seek an independent state in the occupied West Bank, annexed East Jerusalem and Gaza, territories Israel occupied in the 1967 war.
Israel’s government and most of its political class have long been opposed to Palestinian statehood, which it now says would reward militants after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem shortly after the 1967 war and considers it part of its capital.
In the West Bank, it has built scores of settlements, some resembling sprawling suburbs, that are now home to more than 500,000 Jewish settlers with Israeli citizenship.
The territory’s 3 million Palestinians live under Israeli military rule, with the Palestinian Authority exercising limited autonomy in population centres.
