Macron says France could recognize a Palestinian state in June
French president says move may come at UN conference co-hosted with Saudi Arabia; FM Sa’ar warns it would be ‘reward for terror’
France plans to recognize a Palestinian state within months and could make the move at a UN conference in New York in June on settling the Israel-Palestinian conflict, French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday.
“We must take the path of recognition [of the Palestinian state]. So that’s what we’re gonna do in the coming months,” Macron, who just returned from a trip to Egypt during which he visited the Gaza border, told France 5 television.
Israel’s foreign minister denounced the idea as being a “reward for terrorism.”
Macron indicated that the move could come at a June United Nations conference co-hosted by France and Saudi Arabia on creating a Palestinian state.
“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 won’t do it for unity or in order to please someone,” Macron continued. “I’ll do it because I think that at some point it would be fair. And also because I want to take part in a collective dynamic, one that allows everyone who defends Palestine to also recognize Israel.”
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.
He argued the move will serve regional security, a claim rejected by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who said it will have the opposite effect.
“‘Unilateral recognition’ of an imaginary Palestinian state by any state in the reality familiar to us all will be nothing but a reward for terrorism and a strengthening of Hamas,” Sa’ar wrote on X. “Things like this will not only not bring peace, security, and stability closer to our region — but on the contrary: They will push them further away.”
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 Authority Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Varsen Aghabekian Shahin told AFP.
In Egypt this week, Macron held summit talks with President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II. He also took part in a joint phone call alongside the leaders with US President Donald Trump, urging an end to the war in Gaza.
France has long championed a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, including after the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023. 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.
Israel has argued that unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state now will be viewed as a reward for Hamas’s October 7 onslaught. Israel’s military campaign to rid the Gaza Strip of Hamas has sparked worldwide sympathy for Palestinians and galvanized support for recognizing statehood in some capitals.
Last year Spain, Norway, Ireland and Slovenia all recognized a Palestinian state, provoking fury from Israel. In August, the Foreign Ministry announced that it would revoke the diplomatic accreditation of eight Norwegian diplomats based in Tel Aviv who dealt with the Palestinian Authority.
Germany and Portugal both said the time was not right for recognition. In Britain, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, before the elections that saw him win office, said he wanted to recognize a Palestinian state if he won power, but that such a move would need to come at the right time in a peace process.
