French Foreign Ministry: 'These actions are unacceptable'

Police briefly detain French guards at Jerusalem holy site, sparking diplomatic row

Paris to summon Israeli ambassador after visit by French FM is sidetracked by incident at French-run Eleona Church; Israel says guards were let go once they showed diplomatic IDs

French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noel Barrot (R) walks away after cancelling his scheduled visit to the Eleona Church in Jerusalem, on November 7, 2024. (Menahem Kahana/AFP)
French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noel Barrot (R) walks away after cancelling his scheduled visit to the Eleona Church in Jerusalem, on November 7, 2024. (Menahem Kahana/AFP)

The Foreign Ministry in Paris said Thursday it would summon Israel’s ambassador after police officers arrested two French guards with diplomatic visas during a scuffle ahead of French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot’s visit to a French-owned church in Jerusalem.

The ambassador will be summoned “in the coming days” to discuss the incident at the Eleona Church on the Mount of Olives, the ministry in Paris said.

A French statement said that “without having been authorized to do so, Israeli security forces entered the site armed. The minister did not wish to visit the site under these conditions.”

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said that two security guards were detained after refusing to identify themselves, but were released after showing their diplomatic identify cards. France said the two men, staffers from the French Consulate in Jerusalem, were released upon Barrot’s intervention.

“These actions are unacceptable,” the French foreign ministry said. “France condemns them all the more vigorously as they are occurring in a context where it is doing everything possible to work towards de-escalating violence in the region.”

The incident at the church came as Barrot was in Israel to discuss potential ceasefire deals in Gaza and Lebanon, where Israel is fighting the Iranian-backed Hamas and Hezbollah terror groups, following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, and Hezbollah’s initiation of daily rocket and drone attacks the next day.

In this grab taken from AFPTV video footage, Israeli police detain a French guard at the Eleona Domain in Jerusalem, on November 7, 2024. (Chloe Rouveyrolles-Bazire/AFP)

Israel’s Foreign Ministry placed the blame for the fracas on the two French diplomats.

“Every minister from a foreign country who arrives on an official visit to Israel is accompanied by security on behalf of the state, and the security accompanies the minister’s movements in all parts of his visit,” said the ministry.

Barrot’s visit to the church was accompanied by personal security provided by Israel, which was “clarified in advance in the preparatory dialogue with the French Embassy in Israel,” the ministry added.

“During the visit, an argument arose between the Israeli security forces and two French security guards who refused to identify themselves,” it said. “The two were detained by the police and released immediately after identifying themselves as diplomats.”

In footage of the incident circulating on social media, one of the French gendarmes, who is not in uniform, repeatedly tells the officers, “Don’t touch me,” first in French and then in English, and is then grabbed and placed in a police car.

In the video — which begins in the middle of the verbal confrontation — the French guard, who does not appear to have a weapon, cannot be heard identifying himself as a diplomat.

The church compound, also known as the “Church of the Pater Noster,” for the belief that Jesus taught his disciples the Lord’s Prayer there, is administered by France, as one of four so-called “French national domains in the Holy Land.”

The “French domains” — which also include the Tomb of the Kings and the Church of Saint Anne in Jerusalem and the Benedictine monastery in Abu Ghosh — have been the site of previous diplomatic incidents.

“The Eleona domain… is an area that has not only belonged to France for more than 150 years, but whose security France ensures,” Barrot told press on Thursday.

“The integrity of the four domains that France is responsible for here in Jerusalem must be respected,” he added.

The police issued a statement saying they were just doing their job.

“Two individuals at the monastery, initially unidentified, attempted to prevent the minister’s ISA (Shin Bet internal security agency) security personnel from carrying out their duties by refusing them entry to the site,” the statement said.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot poses for photographers overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem, from the Mount of Olives during his visit to Jerusalem, November 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

AFP footage showed police telling the gendarmes accompanying Barrot that next time they must show their identity cards.

“I understand; I’m sorry,” one of the gendarmes responded but added that the officers who had detained him knew who he was.

“They know we work at the French consulate because we were arguing with each other about this place being French or not,” the gendarme said.

The Eleona “is a holy place,” Father Laurent, rector of the Church of Saint Anne, said to AFP.

“Here in Israel, holy places are particularly protected places. You do not enter with weapons. Moreover, it is a French domain.”

The special sites’ jurisdiction is based on a 1948 agreement between France and Israel that was in turn based on centuries-old agreements with the Ottoman Empire, but was never officially ratified by the Knesset.

In January 2020, French President Emmanuel Macron raised his voice at Israeli security personnel after they pushed past a French detail to enter the Church of Saint Anne.

“It’s France here, and everyone knows the rule,” Macron told the Israeli officers, in English, at the time.

Both incidents recalled a 1996 row that broke out when France’s then-president Jacques Chirac got angry at Israeli soldiers for clinging too close to him on a Jerusalem visit and shoving well-wishers, residents and accompanying journalists away when they tried to shake his hand or get close to him.

When his procession arrived at the Church of Saint Anne, Chirac was angered to find armed Israeli officers inside the church, and he demanded they leave before stepping inside himself.

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