Emmanuel Macron on Thursday called for a ceasefire in Gaza as he opened a conference on aid for the enclave.
The hastily arranged event, held on the sidelines of the annual Paris Peace Forum, came amid growing splits in the French government over Mr Macron’s positioning on the Israel-Hamas war.
“In the immediate term, we need to work on protecting civilians. To do that, we need a humanitarian pause very quickly and we must work towards a ceasefire,” he said.
Most Western nations have called for a humanitarian pause rather than a full-blown ceasefire.
The French president has until now held back from using the term ceasefire himself, while France has pushed for pauses in the fighting in discussions with European partners.
Israel is not attending the talks on aid for civilians in Gaza, which is home to 2.4 million people.
Few Arab nations are sending delegates, although the Palestinian Authority is sending its prime minister, while a ministerial delegation from Egypt is also attending.
The prime ministers of Greece, Ireland and Luxembourg will be in attendance, along with top European Union officials Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen.
sandwichnews on November 9th, 2023 at 20:51 UTC »
Unfortunately it’s a loose loose situation for Israel. All their leverage harms the Palestinian people and Israel’s international image. There does need to be a international pressure on hostage release. An unconditional cease fire would send too much of a message to terrorists. I feel no one is requesting Hamas do anything to benefit from a cease fire.
Please don’t forget about the hostages.
Cyber_shafter on November 9th, 2023 at 20:37 UTC »
Macron called for neither a pause nor a ceasefire during a trip to Israel shortly after the Oct 7 attack as he also met the leaders of the Palestinian Authority.
Failure to do so reportedly triggered ire within the French diplomatic corps, which has let it be known that Mr Macron kept the service out of the loop about his stance.
Speaking to Le Monde newspaper, one unnamed French diplomat said: “We are opposed to what looks like alignment with Israel, but we have no way of making it known. It is absurd not to call for a ceasefire. A ceasefire is not a humanitarian truce.”
“What happens now will have a huge impact, for decades, on the image and security of France. The winners are Russia and Turkey. Everything is linked to the problem of the ceasefire: France gives moral and political support to Netanyahu in his conduct of the war,” the diplomat said.
michaelclas on November 9th, 2023 at 20:18 UTC »
This is interesting given how pro Israel Macron usually is