France plans to recognize a Palestinian state in a matter of months and could move at a UN conference in New York in June to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said President Emmanuel Macron in an interview broadcast on Wednesday.
“We must move towards recognition, and we will do it in the coming months,” said Macron, who visited Egypt, France 5 Television.
“Our goal is to preside over this conference with Saudi Arabia in June, where we could finish this mutual recognition movement by several parts,” he added.
“I will do it because I think it will be correct at some point and because participating in a collective dynamic, which also owes all those that defend Palestine to recognize Israel in turn, what many of them do not,” he added.
Such recognition would allow France “to be clear in our fight against those who deny Israel’s right to exist, which is the case with Iran, and compromise our elements to collective security in the region,” he added.
France has long defended a solution of two states to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, even after the attack of October 7, 2023 by the Palestinian militants Hamas in Israel.
But the formal recognition by Paris of a Palestinian State would mark an important policy change and the risk of antagonizing Israel that insists that such movements of foreign states are premature.
Advertisement
‘No one will invest a penny’
The recognition of France from Palestine statement “would be a step in the right direction in line with the safeguarding of the rights of the Palestinian people and the state solution,” the Palestinian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs told the AFP.
Almost 150 countries recognize a Palestinian state. In May 2024, Ireland, Norway and Spain announced the recognition, followed by Slovenia in June, in movements partially fed by the condemnation of the bombing of Israel de Gaza that followed the attacks on October 7.
But France would be the most significant European power to recognize a Palestinian state, a movement that the United States has also resisted for a long time.
Advertisement
In Egypt, Macron made conversations at the summit with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and the king of Jordan Abdullah II and also made it clear that he strongly opposed any displacement or annexation in Gaza and the West Bank of Bank of Capupied Israeli.
The president of the United States, Donald Trump, has suggested to turn Gaza into the “Riviera del Middle East” with the Palestinians who move elsewhere, a suggestion that has caused a bitter condemnation.
Macron replied that Gaza Strip “was not a real estate project.”
“Simplistic thinking sometimes does not help,” he added, and, in a message to Trump, he said: “Perhaps it would be wonderful if the day was developed in an extraordinary way, but our answer is a political life, Yyyyyyy
“If all this does not exist, nobody will invest. Today, nobody will invest a penny in Gaza,” he said.
]
