Macron says France could recognize Palestinian state in June
The French president stated that at a UN conference in June, co-hosted by France and Saudi Arabia, several countries could finalize a joint move toward mutual recognition of a Palestinian state.
France is planning to recognize a Palestinian state within months and could make the move at a UN conference in New York in June on settling the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday, April 9.
"We must move toward recognition, and we will do so in the coming months," Macron, who this week visited Egypt, told France 5 television. "Our aim is to chair this conference with Saudi Arabia in June, where we could finalize this movement of mutual recognition (of a Palestinian state) by several parties," he added. "I will do it (...) because I believe that at some point it will be right and because I also want to participate in a collective dynamic, which must also allow all those who defend Palestine to recognize Israel in turn, which many of them do not do," 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 to commit ourselves to collective security in the region," he added.
'Step in the right direction'
France's recognition of Palestinian statehood "would be a step in the right direction in line with safeguarding the rights of the Palestinian people and the two-state solution," Palestinian Foreign Affairs Minister Varsen Aghabekian Shahin told Agnece France-Presse on Wednesday.
France has long championed a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, including after the October 7, 2023, attack by Palestinian militants Hamas on Israel. But formal recognition by Paris of a Palestinian state would mark a major policy switch and risk antagonizing Israel which insists such moves by foreign states are premature.
Le Monde with AFP