France Could Recognize A Palestinian State 'In June'

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

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

"Our aim is to chair this conference with Saudi Arabia in June, where we could finalise this movement of mutual recognition (of a Palestinian state) by several parties," he added.

"I will do it (...) because I believe that 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.

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," he added.

Macron's comments were promptly welcomed by the Palestinian Authority, which hailed "a step in the right direction".

France's recognition of Palestinian statehood "would be a step in the right direction in line with safeguarding the rights of the Palestinian people and the two state solution," Palestinian minister of state for foreign affairs Varsen Aghabekian Shahin told AFP.

France has long championed a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, including after the October 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian militants Hamas on Israel.

But formal recognition by Paris of a Palestinian state would mark a major policy switch and risk antagonising Israel, which insists such moves by foreign states are premature.

In Egypt, Macron held summit talks with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan's King Abdullah II.

Source: FRANCE 24