France supports the creation of an independent Palestine.[4][5] France believes Jerusalem should be the shared capital ofIsrael and a future Palestinian state.[6] France's attempts to introduce resolutions in the United Nations calling for an independent Palestinian state were opposed by the United States.[7] A survey found 80% of French people support France recognizing Palestine.[8]
In 1967 following theSix-Day War,Charles De Gaulle controversially said that when Israel was created "there were those who feared that the Jews, who through long years of dispersion had remained what they had always been-an elitist people, self-assured and domineering-would once gathered in the site of their former grandeur, transform into a burn for conquest the tender longing of nineteen centuries".[9] It marked a change in France's stance as it started to develop its ties with the Arab world from a realistic perspective.[9] It held talks with thePalestinian Liberation Organization despite it carrying out terrorist attacks in France targeting Israel.[9]
France provided over €500 million to the Palestinian territory from 2008 to 2017.[4] In March 2023, France condemnedBezalel Smotrich, Minister of Finance of Israel, for saying Palestine was a recent invention in Paris during the memorial service of Jacques Kupfer organized by Israel is forever.[10] He spoke from a podium with a map of Greater Israel containing the Palestinian territories and Jordan.[10]
In 2014, theFrench parliament passed a resolution urging their government to recognize Palestine as a state, with the intention of facilitating a definitive resolution to the conflict.[11] A United Nations Security Council resolution proposed in 2014, calling for the end of Israeli occupation and statehood by 2017, did not pass due to opposition and abstentions.[12][13][14][15]
Alain Gresh describedEmmanuel Macron'sRenaissance as being anti-Palestinian.[16] On 24 October 2023, France called for a ceasefire in theGaza war.[17] Macron criticized the civilian death toll in the conflict.[18] He proposed using the Anti-IS coalition againstHamas which was rejected by the international community.[19] The war showed divisions along ethnic and religious lines in France, which home to more than six million Muslims and the largest Jewish population in Europe.[20][21] France launched a crackdown on pro-Palestinian groups and banned protests in favor of Palestine after the Hamas attacks.[22][23]
In March 2025, France supported the Arab plans for the rebuilding of Gaza.[29][30] AUN conference organized by both France and Saudi Arabia on the two-state solution for Israel/Palestine began on July 28, 2025 (postponed from June because of the outbreak of the Iran-Israel war)[31][32] and concluded two days later. In an address to theParliament of the United Kingdom in July 2025,Emmanuel Macron called for France and the United Kingdom to recognise theState of Palestine.[33] Macron then announced that France would officially recognize Palestine during theeightieth session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2025.[34] In response, the United States and Israel condemned the move, with theUnited States Secretary of State,Marco Rubio, rejecting Macron's plan, calling it a "reckless decision" and "only serves Hamas propaganda."[35]
^abétrangères, Ministère de l'Europe et des Affaires."Peace Process".France Diplomacy - Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs. Retrieved25 December 2023.
Media related toRelations of France and Palestine at Wikimedia Commons
