French Mayors Defy Government By Displaying Palestinian Flags
Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau warned that public buildings should remain neutral, stressing that only the French tricolor represents national values.
Palestinian, French and European flags flown from the town hall of Malakoff, South of Paris on September 21, 2025.
Bertrand Guay / AFP
Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau warned that public buildings should remain neutral, stressing that only the French tricolor represents national values.
Several French mayors have raised Palestinian flags on town halls—defying government instructions ahead of France’s formal recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations.
The initiative follows Socialist leader Olivier Faure’s call to display the flags, despite warnings from the Interior Ministry about the risks of importing international conflicts onto French territory.
In Malakoff—a suburb of Paris—Mayor Jacqueline Belhomme said she was ordered to remove the flag but refused, calling it
something symbolically important, just as we did some time ago with the Ukrainian flag when we stood with the Ukrainian people who were under attack by Russia.
In Mauléon-Licharre, the communist mayor raised a flag briefly before taking it down after the matter was referred to an administrative court.
Other mayors, including Mathieu Hanotin of Saint-Denis and Johanna Rolland of Nantes, indicated plans to display the flag as a symbolic gesture linked to France’s recognition of Palestine. Saint-Ouen’s mayor Karim Bouamrane said he would fly both Israeli and Palestinian flags to promote a message of peace.
Previously, outgoing Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau has urged prefects to block an initiative from the Socialist Party’s Olivier Faure to hoist Palestinian flags on French town halls on September 22nd.
The front of a town hall is not a billboard. Only the tricolor flag—our colors, our values—has the right to be represented in what remains, for us, a common home.
Rebeka Kis is a fifth-year law student at the University of Pécs. Her main interests are politics and history, with experience in the EU’s day-to-day activities gained as an intern with the Foundation for a Civic Hungary at the European Parliament.
