The scale of the genocidal war in Gaza has finally won out over Emmanuel Macron’s dithering. On Thursday July 24th, the French president announced his decision to recognise the state of Palestine, a move he will make official at the United Nations General Assembly at the end of September. “In doing so, France wants to make a decisive contribution to peace in the Middle East,” he wrote in a letter sent earlier that day to Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority.
For France, this move marks a historic shift. The issue of whether to fully recognise Palestine as a state has confronted every French president since 1988, when an initial wave of international recognition began. François Mitterrand, Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy had each made it a distant goal that Paris supported, without taking the final step. President François Hollande pledged it before his election in 2012 but backed away from it during his five-year term.
Emmanuel Macron himself spent seven years dithering, showing little interest in the matter until the deadly attacks carried out by Hamas on October 7th 2023 and the Israeli offensive that followed. The scale of the bombing and destruction in the Gaza Strip led him to raise the idea for the first time in February 2024. After a visit to Egypt, during which he met wounded civilians and aid workers on the Palestinian border, he took things further in April 2025, saying he would “move towards recognition”.
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Since then, there had been nothing more than repeated pledges that France was “determined to recognise the state of Palestine”. But exactly when and how remained unclear. The postponement at the end of June of the Franco-Saudi conference expected to seal the decision had raised fears that recognition would be shelved. Observers had plenty of reasons to be gloomy: Saudi Arabia had no intention of normalising relations with Israel – a reciprocal condition initially put forward by the Elysée – and the United States had redoubled efforts to dissuade Paris.
In the middle of the summer, Emmanuel Macron, who has long been criticised for his indulgence of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has now and unexpectedly set out his decision and timetable in black and white. France and Saudi Arabia will publish in the coming days a plan for the “day after”, setting out conditions for governance and security in Gaza. On July 28th and 29th, France's foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot will co-chair a conference on the subject with his Saudi counterpart. If the head of state sticks to his timetable, formal recognition will take place between September 23rd and 27th in New York.
None of this will, of course, change anything in the daily lives of the people of Gaza, who are still facing bombing, famine and ethnic cleansing at the hands of the Israeli army. That was, in fact, the key argument of those within the French state administration who tried to dissuade Emmanuel Macron from making the announcement. “Recognition doesn’t create a state of Palestine,” one adviser to the executive noted several months ago. “It won’t give Palestinians anything real, and certainly not a working state.”
A decision welcomed in Palestine
That may be factually true, but it overlooks the symbolic weight of the move taken by Emmanuel Macron. If the president keeps his word, France will become the first major Western power, and the first G7 country, to recognise the state of Palestine. Coming from a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, the decision carries weight. Spain took the step a year ago, but France likes to think it carries more clout on the world stage.
Hussein al-Sheikh, vice-president of the Palestinian Authority and expected successor to Mahmoud Abbas, welcomed a decision that “reflects France's commitment to international law and its support for the Palestinian people's rights to self-determination and the establishment of our independent state”. In France, several leftwing political figures also welcomed the move, with Jean-Luc Mélenchon of the radical-left La France Insoumise hailing it as a “moral victory”.
“It’s a very moving moment,” Green MP Sabrina Sebaihi, a leading voice on the issue, told Mediapart. “This recognition was long overdue, but it nonetheless restores France to its rightful place in the diplomatic order, standing with the oppressed.” The first secretary of the Socialist Party (PS) Olivier Faure “welcomed” the presidential decision on X, while also calling, like others in his camp, for sanctions to “stop the ongoing genocide”.
Ofer Bronchtein, head of the Paris-based International Forum for Peace, also expressed his “relief”. “It was high time!” said the man tasked by Emmanuel Macron to help bring together Palestinian and Israeli civil societies. “This is a great victory for the peace camp and, I hope, for a future based on respect and dignity. The road to a 'hot peace' will now be long and painful.”
Indeed, the next stage raises tough questions. As Palestinian people continue to perish day after day, the two-month gap between Macron’s announcement and its implementation carries real risks for French diplomacy. Being out of step is not the least of them. “Don’t turn the recognition of Palestine into a posthumous recognition,” the historian Vincent Lemire warned the French head of state on RTL radio station on Thursday. “If you wait any longer, you’ll end up recognising a graveyard.”
London, the unknown factor
The Elysée’s aim in splitting the announcement into two parts is to allow France to rally support. For months, Emmanuel Macron has tried to construct the major international movement he had initially envisaged: on the one side, major Western powers standing with France (the United Kingdom, Canada…), and on the other, a move from Arab states towards normalising ties with Israel.
The French president has had to accept that the plan has failed. The July 24th declaration now appears to be Plan B. With behind-the-scenes talks going nowhere, France is going it alone to get things moving. “Now, the others have two months to take a stand,” said a diplomatic source.
Eyes now obviously turn to London, whose backing would constitute a major win. Emmanuel Macron was set to meet British prime minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Friday morning to discuss the matter. With Berlin seen as immovable, Paris is pinning all its hopes on the Labour leader.
The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs is closely watching the debate on an issue which is shaking up British politics. It has not gone unnoticed that several members of Starmer’s government have recently called for recognition of the state of Palestine. This needed to be done “while there’s still a state of Palestine left to recognise,” the influential health secretary Wes Streeting said on Tuesday. Sixty MPs from the ruling Labour Party signed a letter to Keir Starmer to that effect at the start of July.
On the other hand, and despite fresh calls from several leftwing MPs on Thursday evening, France is not expected to impose sanctions on the Israeli government. This mirrors the stance taken at the recent meeting of EU foreign ministers, which rejected any firm action against the government of Benjamin Netanyahu.
Instead, Paris sees itself as an architect of what comes next. The United States will be responsible for brokering a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, including a sixty-day period to think through the future. The Franco-Saudi duo will handle the “day after”: disarming Hamas, securing Gaza through an international force, and putting in place lasting governance.
In this French vision, the two-month window will give time for others to stake out their position, not just in the West, but also in North Africa and the Middle East. “The aim is to get the states in the region to back our plan,” one diplomatic source insisted.
One government has already shown outright hostility towards France: Israel. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Macron’s decision “rewards terror”. His deputy, Yariv Levin, called it a “black mark on France's history and direct support for terrorism”, while defence minister Israel Katz condemned it as a “disgrace” and vowed that Israel would not allow the creation of a “Palestinian entity that would harm our security, endanger our existence ”.
What Paris fears more than fiery words from the Israeli government are retaliatory steps from Tel Aviv. As early as May, official sources quoted by Le Figaro newspaper issued a clear threat to France: if Macron went ahead with recognition, Israel - which in practice already acts as if it has - would formally annex settlements in the West Bank. The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs is not taking those threats lightly and is braced for the worst in the coming days.
Last to respond was the United States, which on Friday said it “strongly” rejected the French decision. No one in Paris was surprised. A staunch ally of Israel, US president Donald Trump views France’s two-state push with deep mistrust. No member of his administration will attend the July 28th and 29th conference, even though it is being held on American soil. Pressure from Washington may also grow to stop others following France’s lead.
In November 2012, when France was hesitating over whether to back Palestine’s admission to the United Nations in the face of Barack Obama’s objections, the writer Stéphane Hessel picked up the phone and rang the Elysée. “I asked them to tell François Hollande that this was not a time to be cowed by the Americans,” the intellectual and former diplomat told Mediapart. “The situation in Gaza shows that now more than ever is the time to show a bit of courage!” On the line that day were two Elysée advisers, including one Emmanuel Macron.
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- The original French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter