The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has called the 7 October attacks by Hamas on Israel the “biggest antisemitic massacre of our century” as he led a ceremony paying tribute to the French victims.
Macron described the attacks by the Palestinian militant group as “barbarism … which is fed by antisemitism and propagates it”. He said: “We must fight against hatred, we must not give in to rampant, unbridled antisemitism. Nothing can justify or excuse terrorism.”
Macron said that in France a “spirit of revenge” should never be allowed to grow and “nothing should divide us”. He said France would “work tirelessly to respond to aspirations for peace and security in the Middle East”. He said that in the suffering of war, all lives were equal in France’s eyes.
France would “fight every day” to bring about the release of the hostages held since 7 October, Macron said.
The ceremony at the Invalides memorial complex in Paris was the first major international memorial event outside Israel since the Hamas attacks four months ago. The ceremony remembered the 42 French citizens killed in the attacks and the three others still missing, believed to be held hostage. It also honoured four freed French-Israeli hostages and six people injured in the attacks.
Portraits of each person were carried by republican guards. Three chairs were left empty for the people believed still to be held hostage. Many families were flown in from Israel by France on a special flight. The ceremony was broadcast live on a screen in Tel Aviv.
View image in fullscreen The ceremony took place at the Invalides memorial complex in Paris. Photograph: Christophe Petit-Tesson/EPA
Hamas killed 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages in its attacks, including at a music festival and kibbutzim. Israel then launched a military offensive in the Gaza Strip, in which at least 27,585 Palestinians have been killed and thousands more are feared buried under rubble, the Hamas-run health ministry said.
The French presidency said this week that France would also provide an opportunity to remember French citizens killed in the Israeli bombardments of Gaza. “It is obvious that we owe the same emotion and the same dignity to the French victims of the bombings in Gaza, and this tribute will be paid to them at another time,” the official said, without giving a date.
The Elysée said the key message of the memorial ceremony for the victims of the 7 October attacks was the “fight against antisemitism and through it … all forms of hatred, racism and oppression of minorities”.
Yashay Dan, a relative of one of the French-Israelis believed still to be held hostage, Ofer Kalderon, said he hoped the ceremony could “resonate all around the world, not only in France”. He told the Associated Press: “I think from this perspective that France is showing a great gesture by being with those that have suffered an enormous blow.”
Ayla Yahalomi Luzon, the sister of another French-Israeli presumed hostage, Ohad Yahalomi, said: “We don’t need people to hope for us. I have hope. We need help. Ohad is a French citizen and I ask France to make all efforts to release him and everyone.”
Tzipora Levy, whose son Yitzhak was killed at the Nova music festival and who had travelled to Paris, said the ceremony was symbolic amid the sadness felt by families. She told France Info television: “All that matters to me for the moment is the release of the hostages.”
View image in fullscreen Macron with relatives of victims after the ceremony. Photograph: Christophe Petit-Tesson/EPA
There was controversy over some of the politicians attending the Paris ceremony, with many families of French victims saying they did not want to see figures from Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s leftwing party, La France Insoumise, accusing it of failing to sufficiently denounce the 7 October attacks and term Hamas a terror group.
According to protocol, all members of the French parliament were invited. La France Insoumise’s coordinator, Manuel Bompard, and the head of its parliamentary group, Mathilde Panot, attended. Bompard had told French media that he shared the families’ pain and sorrow. Panot said she wanted to pay homage to all the French victims of war in the Middle East.