French President Emmanuel Macron announced Thursday that France would recognize Palestine as a state, angering snowballed by global anger starving in Gaza.
Macron said in an article on X that he will formalize the decision at the UN General Assembly in September. “Today’s emergency is that the war in Gaza has ceased and civilians have been saved.”
The French president has supported Israel in the wake of the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 and has frequently opposed anti-Semitism, but he has become increasingly frustrated with Israel’s military movement in Gaza, especially in recent months.
“In view of its historic commitment to just and sustainable peace in the Middle East, I decided that France will recognize the situation in Palestine.”
He also posted a letter he sent to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
France is the largest and most powerful European country that recognizes Palestine. More than 140 countries have recognized a Palestinian country, including more than a dozen European countries.
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France has the largest Jewish population in Europe and the largest Muslim population in Western Europe, and fighting in the Middle East often flocks to protests or other tensions in France.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry did not immediately comment.
French Foreign Minister will co-chair a meeting on the two-state solution next week at the United Nations. Last month, Macron said he was “decided to recognize the situation in Palestine”.
Thursday’s announcement came shortly after the brief U.S. ceasefire negotiations in Qatar, where he said Hamas did not show sincerity.
In recent days, the momentum has been facing Israel. Earlier this week, France and more than 20 European countries condemned Israeli restrictions on aid shipments and the killings of hundreds of Palestinians trying to obtain food.
Palestinians sought independent states in the occupied West Bank, annexed East Jerusalem and Gaza, and the Israeli region occupied in the 1967 Middle East War. The Israeli government and most of its political class have long opposed the founding of Palestine, and now says that this will reward radicals after the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.
Shortly after the 1967 war, Israel annexed East Jerusalem and considered it part of its capital. In the West Bank, it established many settlements, some similar to suburban settlements, and home to more than 500,000 Jewish settlers with Israeli citizenship. The territory’s 3 million Palestinians live under Israeli military rule, and the Palestinian authorities exercise limited autonomy in the population center.
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