After sparking international outrage by arguing for suspending arms deliveries to Israel earlier this month, President Emmanuel Macron doubled down on his statements at a European summit in Cyprus on Friday—despite having assured Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu of France’s “unfailing support” for Israel. At the summit, attended by the Mediterranean powers of the European Union, the French President reiterated his comments on the need for an embargo on Israel. He said that a halt to arms deliveries was “the only lever” that could “put an end” to the war in Lebanon.
Two days before the commemorations in honour of the victims of the Hamas attack on October 7th, Emmanuel Macron provoked the Israeli PM, by calling for an end to the supply of weapons used by Israel in Gaza.
On Saturday, October 5th, during a special programme on France Inter, Emmanuel Macron said that “the priority” was to return “to a political solution, to stop delivering weapons to fight in Gaza.”
The Israeli Prime Minister described the French suggestion of an embargo on arms deliveries as a “disgrace,” and asked the French president for an explanation over the phone. During the exchange, Emmanuel Macron sought to reassure his Israeli counterpart by assuring him of France’s “unfailing support.”
In France, Emmanuel Macron’s statements were met with outrage from the centre, including the president’s own camp, and the Right. Macron’s desire to send a signal of support to his traditional Lebanese ally did not justify such statements, according to Roger Karoutchi, senator for Les Républicains and chairman of the France-Israel friendship group in the upper house.
“When you have ‘unfailing support’ like that, you don’t need enemies. The eternal ‘en même temps’ (at the same time), is not very serious there,” Karoutchi said, pointing to Macron’s tendency to try to reconcile everything with its opposite.
Gérard Araud, former French ambassador to the United States, also condemned the president’s diplomatic amateurism. In an article published in the weekly Le Point, he criticised Macron’s inability to be credible on the international stage. “Even a president needs diplomats,” he quipped.
Unsurprisingy, the Left welcomed Macron’s statements, reinforcing the idea that the French President is playing a dangerous game with the Muslim world and its links with terrorists.
France is not one of the arms suppliers to Israel. As a result, and given its loss of influence on the international stage, the president’s statements sound like a rant devoid of any possible effectiveness. In Germany, Macron’s statements have encouraged Olaf Scholz’s government to step up arms deliveries to Israel.
As Le Figaro points out, while Macron is not the only one to criticise Israel’s military response, his failure to clearly condemn Hezbollah, which supported the attack on October 7th and is holding Lebanon hostage, has been widely condemned. With his statements, Macron has targeted Israel without mentioning the responsibility of Hezbollah on the one hand and Iran on the other.
