France's foreign minister attempted to quell a growing diplomatic row with Israel over alleged anti-Semitism on Friday after Orange announced plans to pull out of the country, reports The Telegraph.
The French mobile phone provider has been accused of submitting to pressure for an "anti-Semitic" boycott of the Jewish state.
Laurent Fabius declared he was "opposed to any boycott of Israel" a day after Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, urged France and other Western countries to announce their opposition to any such embargo.
Mr Fabius was speaking after Orange - in which the French government holds a 25 per cent stake - said it would end its arrangement with a local supplier, Partner Communications, which operates under the internationally-renowned brand.
But he ignored Mr Netanyahu's demand that France "publicly repudiate" what the Israeli leader called a "miserable statement and miserable action by a company that is under its partial ownership".
Instead, Mr Fabius said it was "up to the president of the Orange group to define the commercial strategy of its company". He added pointedly that "the position of France and the European Union on settlements is consistent and widely known". Orange has been under pressure because its brand is used by West Bank settlers.
The comments following growing anger in Israel after Stephane Richard, Orange's chief executive, told reporters in Cairo this week that he would withdraw the company's brand from Israel "tomorrow morning" but feared incurring legal action and financial penalties if it was done too quickly.
Mr Richard later said the decision to pull out, confirmed on Thursday, was "purely a commercial matter" driven by Orange's policy of not using its brand name in countries where it was not the direct mobile supplier.
"Frankly, I think my words were misunderstood,” he told Israel's mass circulation Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.“I love Israel.”
However, Orange's decision followed pressure by an international coalition of human rights groups and French trade unions, who last month published a report accusing the company of "indirectly contributing to the maintenance and strengthening" of West Bank settlements through its Israeli branding arrangement.
The EU has declared the settlements in occupied land claimed by the Palestinians to be illegal and an obstacle to peace.
The deal with Partner Communications was renewed just a month-and-a-half ago, having previously run for 17 years.