France bans Israeli defense firms from prestigious arms show amid Gaza ceasefire call
74 firms booted from Eurosatory 2024; Gantz asks French PM to reconsider after country’s defense ministry says ‘conditions no longer right’ to host Israeli companies
French authorities have banned Israeli defense firms from exhibiting at a trade show next month near Paris, organizers said on Friday.
“By decision of the government authorities, there will be no stand for the Israeli defense industry at the Eurosatory 2024 fair,” organizers Coges Events said.
Coges did not offer an explanation, but France’s defense ministry released a statement saying that “the conditions are no longer right to host Israeli companies at the Paris show, given that the French president is calling for the cessation of IDF operation in Rafah.”
The announcement came days after an Israeli strike targeting two top Hamas terrorists in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah sparked a fire in a complex housing displaced Palestinians, killing dozens of civilians and triggering international outrage and protests in France.
An Israel Defense Forces probe into the strike found that a hidden store of weapons may have been the actual cause of the deadly blaze, and that the airstrike that targeted an adjacent area had used small munitions that would not ignite such a fire on their own.
Responding to the fatal blaze, in which Hamas-run health authorities in Gaza said 45 civilians were killed, French President Emmanuel Macron said he was “outraged” and demanded an “immediate ceasefire.”
“In accordance with the president’s comments, we call for a ceasefire which will ensure the protection of the Gazan civilian population, the release of all hostages and full access to the humanitarian aid,” the French ministry statement added.
The annual event is one of the world’s largest defense fairs, with over 1,700 firms expected to present to over 60,000 attendees from 150 countries.
Seventy-four Israeli firms had been set to be represented at the June 17 to 21 event at fairgrounds close to Paris’s main international airport, with Coges previously saying around 10 of them were to exhibit weapons.
National Unity chair Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet, said on Friday that he had discussed the matter with French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and asked him to reconsider the decision.
“I asked Attal for France to reconsider the decision to ban the Israeli delegation to the Eurosatory arms exhibition, which is unacceptable and is a reward for terrorism,” he wrote in a post on X.
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli embassy in France declined to comment.
The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas’s October 7 massacre, which saw some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 252 hostages, mostly civilians, many amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.
Hamas-run health authorities in Gaza say more than 35,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though only some 24,000 fatalities have been identified at hospitals. The toll, which cannot be verified, includes some 15,000 terror operatives Israel says it has killed in battle. Israel also says it killed some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
A total of 294 soldiers have been killed during the ground offensive against Hamas and amid operations along the Gaza border. A civilian Defense Ministry contractor has also been killed in the Strip.
A group of activists last week in a legal warning urged Coges to take measures to avoid the buying and selling of weapons that could be used in alleged Israeli “crimes” committed in Gaza and the West Bank.
ASER, Stop Arming Israel, Urgency Palestine and the France-Palestine Solidarity Association also warned against profits from the fair “reinforcing the economic power of firms likely to participate in these crimes.”
Coges told AFP it was “a fair solely for the presentation of defense and security equipment… and by no means a place for deals.”
Amid the ongoing war in Gaza, there have been growing calls to limit arms sales to the IDF and divest from Israeli defense companies.
The demand has its roots in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, a decades-old campaign against Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians. The movement has taken on new strength as Israel’s war against Hamas surpasses the eight-month mark and stories of suffering in Gaza have led to growing international pressure on Israel to end the fighting.
Protesters in the BDS movement — including student encampments and corporate demonstrations — have claimed parallels between Israel’s policy vis-à-vis Gaza, to apartheid in South Africa. Opponents of BDS say its message veers into antisemitism.
