The Middle East fell off their radar. Now comes a steady stream of leaders who have donned their penitent's garb and flown in to show support and push for peace. The latest is Emmanuel Macron. The French president is travelling to both Israel and the West Bank as the war with Gaza stokes bitter rivalries in France, the European nation that's home to Europe's largest Jewish and Muslim populations.
We ask about Paris's official policy going forward and the acrimony at home over the far left's refusal to brand Hamas a terror organisation and over the government’s blanket ban on pro-Palestinian demonstrations, a ban that's since been overturned by the courts. How toxic is it this time in France? The whole world feels a stake in the land that's three times holy and the French are no exception. From the Crusaders and Napoleon to de Gaulle and Chirac, the Middle East plays a part in our own collective narrative. If this is a watershed moment for the Middle East, then which way is it headed?
He landed in Tel Aviv and before he'd left the airport, Emmanuel Macron met families of the victims of the October 7 attacks. Thirty French citizens were killed on the day. Nine remain missing, possibly hostages. Macron made the rounds by meeting with the president, the prime minister and leaders of the opposition. In Benjamin Netanyahu's company, he talked tough on Hamas with an idea that drew everyone's attention. The backlash was immediate: putting Hamas in the same bag as the Islamic State group would be tantamount to France ruling out a peaceful solution for Gaza and endorsing all-out war.
After Dutch PM Mark Rutte on Monday, Emmanuel Macron made the trip to Ramallah and sat down with Mahmoud Abbas, something US President Joe Biden couldn't do the day after the Gaza hospital bombing. The conflict is creating an ongoing war of words here in France. The latest episode was sparked by the speaker of parliament's weekend visit to Israel, judged too one-sided by the firebrand far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the same Mélenchon who refuses to brand Hamas a terror group.
While the French left tears itself apart, the far right's Marine Le Pen is climbing in the polls. During Monday's parliamentary debate, she bashed the concept of a Gaza ceasefire, saying "you only ask terrorists to lay down their weapons and liberate hostages".
Jacques Chirac won instant glory in the Arab World with his 1996 "this is a provocation" moment of anger when he pushed back against Israeli security on a trip to the Old City of Jerusalem, but he's possibly the last French president to proclaim France's difference on Middle East policy. This despite a hot mic moment where his successor Nicolas Sarkozy was caught telling Barack Obama that Benjamin Netanyahu was a liar whom he couldn't stand anymore.
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Lila Paulou and Louise Guibert.
