France, for a long time more or less balanced in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this time openly took Israel’s side after the Hamas attack on Saturday, October 7, and the war against Gaza that followed.
It does not do so more than the United States, which has even sent its aircraft carriers to the region to intervene if necessary, nor more than the United Kingdom, but there is among public opinion in the Arab world and Muslim as a disappointed expectation of France since the start of the clashes between the Israeli army and Palestinian fighters on October 7.
In the major events that marked the Middle East until fifteen years ago, France’s voice was singular: that of restraint and balance. The latest episode in which French diplomacy distinguished itself by such an attitude was the invasion of Iraq by the United States in 2003.
France, led by its last truly Gaullist president, Jacques Chirac, had refused to give Washington permission to supposedly flush out Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.
Jacques Chirac warned against the destabilization of Iraq and the entire region and time ended up proving him right. No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, which since this invasion has been plagued by all forms of violence.
But the time of “France’s Arab policy” has passed. Jacques Chirac’s successor, Nicolas Sarkozy, elected in 2007, initiated a shift in the country’s foreign policy, gradually aligning it with that of the United States.
His successors, including current President Emmanuel Macron, seem to have found what they were looking for. Helped by the twists and turns of internal politics – controversies over Islam, the fight against terrorism, debates on immigration – France very quickly went from the most popular country in the Arab and Muslim world to one of the most decried.
With the endless debates on immigration and the place of Islam, the amalgamations between Muslims and Islamists as well as its unconditional support for Israel, France takes the risk of damaging its image among public opinion in the countries Arabs, Muslims, and even Africans where support for Israel is rare.
Since the October 7 attack, official France has remained inflexible in its support for Israel, which it has refused to condemn for its strikes on Gaza.
On Monday, October 16, she joined her voice with that of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan to reject at the United Nations Security Council a Russian proposal for a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Tuesday evening, when a strike targeted a hospital in Gaza, killing 500 people, the majority of whom were women and children, Emmanuel Macron condemned and called for an investigation, without naming the culprit, as if he too was giving credit to the Israeli version which evokes a failed shot by Islamic Jihad.
The position that France has adopted and obviously finds its explanation in this “ Americanization” of its foreign policy began 15 years ago, but also in the imperatives of internal policy.
On all issues linked to Islam, Muslims, immigration, or identity, a large part of the French political class has learned in recent years to model its positions on those of the far right which is inexorably rising. ballot after ballot.
Israel – Palestine: 20 years ago, France’s position would have been that of Mélenchon
At the same time, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become a sort of dividing line between the right and the left not only in France but throughout the world.
In current events, the countries that have taken a stand for Palestine are those led by left-wing governments, such as Colombia which asked the Israeli ambassador to leave the country.
This demarcation is even clearer in France where La France Insoumise (LFI, far left) of Jean-Luc Mélenchon is the only political group to have denounced the violence on both sides and pointed out the government’s colonization policy. Israeli far-right as the direct cause of what is happening.
This position, which would naturally have been that of official France 15 or 20 years ago, is seen as the worst betrayal. It caused Mélenchon and his party to be ostracized, attacked and threatened with “physical liquidation” (remarks made by pro-Israeli singer Enrico Macias on a television channel).
France goes beyond its support for Israel. Any dissenting voice suffers the same wrath from the far-right and even certain members of the government.
Footballer Karim Benzema is accused by Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin of being linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and a senator has called for him to be stripped of his French nationality without this moving anyone.
Former MEP Karim Zeribi is lynched and threatened on social media, and Algerian OGC Nice footballer Youcef Atal is sued, suspended by his club and denigrated in the media for sharing a video of a preacher Palestinian in support of the people of Gaza, before deleting it and apologizing.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon is threatened with death. The Paris prosecutor’s office announced the opening of an investigation after a complaint from the leader of the Insoumis.
At the same time, the pro-Israeli singer Enrico Macias, who called for the Insoumis to be physically liquidated, is not worried. On the contrary, in the media, many voices found extenuating circumstances and defended him.
With the largest Jewish community and the largest Muslim community in Europe, France is also, naturally, the country which has recorded the most controversies linked to the situation in the Middle East since the Hamas attack.
Fearing the importation of the conflict onto its territory, the French government is one of the few in the West to decree a ban on pro-Palestinian demonstrations. A nuanced decision this Wednesday by the Council of State, which considered that it is up to the prefects to judge threats to public order on a case-by-case basis.
However, many voices of wisdom are becoming increasingly heard in France as Israeli crimes become more difficult to silence.
They express more balanced positions and place the responsibility for what is happening on the Israeli colonization policy, the refusal of the two-state solution and the daily abuses that the Palestinians suffer.
The most resounding is that of the last Gaullist Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, who informed Israel that “self-defense” does not give the right to “indiscriminate vengeance”.
There are also the strong declarations of Gérard Arnaud, former ambassador to the United States and Israel who, already in 2019, described the latter country as an “ Apartheid State” , or those of the Archbishop of Algiers Mgr. Jean-Paul Vesco who pointed out the variable geometry condemnations of Western countries.
