PARIS: France plans to recognise a Palestinian state within months and could make the move at a UN conference on settling the conflict in New York in June, President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview broadcast on Wednesday.

“We must move towards recognition, and we will do so in the coming months,” Macron, who this week visited Egypt, told the France 5 television channel.

“Our aim is to chair this conference with Saudi Arabia in June, where we could finalise this movement of mutual recognition by several parties,” he said.

“I will do it as I believe at some point it will be right and because I also want to participate in a collective dynamic, which must also allow all those who defend Palestine to recognise Israel in turn, which many of them do not do,” he added.

Nearly 150 countries recognise a Palestinian state. In May 2024, Ireland, Norway and Spain announced recognition, followed by Slovenia next month, in moves partly fuelled by condemnation of Israel’s brutal action in Gaza.

Macron said such recognition would allow France “to be clear in our fight against those who deny Israel’s right to exist — which is the case with Iran — and to commit ourselves to collective security in the region.”

A formal recognition by Paris would be a major policy shift and risk antagonising Israel and US.

France’s recognition of Palestinian statehood “would be a step in the right direction in line with safeguarding the rights of Palestinians and the two-state solution,” Palestinian state minister for foreign affairs Varsen Shahin said.

In Egypt, Macron held summit talks with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II and also made clear he was strongly opposed to any displacement or annexation in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

US President Donald Trump has suggested turning Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East” with the Palestinians moving elsewhere — a suggestion that has sparked bitter condemnation. Macron responded the Gaza Strip was “not a real estate project”. “Simplistic thinking sometimes doesn’t help,” he added, and, in a message to Trump said “our responsibility is to save lives, restore peace, and negotiate a political framework. If all this doesn’t exist, no one will invest. Today, no one will invest a cent in Gaza.”

Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2025