President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday that France will officially recognize Palestine as a state, in an announcement that comes amid snowballing global anger over people starving in Gaza.
The mostly symbolic move puts added diplomatic pressure on Israel as its genocidal war and humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip rage.
Many European leaders welcomed Macron’s announcement, describing it as a key step toward achieving peace in the Middle East.
France will formalize the decision at the United Nations General Assembly in September, Macron said in a post on social media platform X. “The urgent thing today is that the war in Gaza stops and the civilian population is saved,″ he noted.
France is now the biggest Western power to recognize Palestine, and the move could pave the way for other countries to do the same. More than 140 countries recognize a Palestinian state, including more than a dozen in Europe.
The Palestinians seek an independent state in the occupied West Bank, annexed east Jerusalem and Gaza, territories Israel occupied in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel’s government and most of its political class have long been opposed to Palestinian statehood.
France’s decision marks an “important contribution” toward “implementing the two-state solution, which offers the only lasting basis for peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians alike,” Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris said on X.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez also voiced support for the French decision, stressing the urgency of preserving the path to a negotiated settlement. “I welcome that France joins Spain and other European countries in recognizing the State of Palestine,” he said on X.
“Together, we must protect what (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu is trying to destroy. The two-state solution is the only solution,” he added.
Scottish First Minister John Swinney also weighed in, calling on the U.K. government to take similar action. “The U.K. should follow the example of France tonight and recognise the State of Palestine. This is essential for peace,” he said on X.
“The ceasefire and humanitarian aid must start now,” he added.
The Palestinian Authority welcomed the announcement. A letter announcing the move was presented Thursday to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Jerusalem.
”We express our thanks and appreciation” to Macron, Hussein Al Sheikh, the PLO’s vice president under Abbas, posted. ”This position reflects France’s commitment to international law and its support for the Palestinian people’s rights to self-determination.”
Israel, meanwhile, denounced the decision.
”We strongly condemn President Macron’s decision,” Netanyahu said in a statement. He said such a move “rewards terror and risks creating another Iranian proxy.”
There was no immediate reaction from the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
In June, the U.S. said it opposed any steps that would unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state, even saying it could go against its foreign policy interests and draw consequences.
With Europe’s largest Jewish population and the largest Muslim population in western Europe, France has often seen fighting in the Middle East spill over into protests or other tensions at home.
Macron offered support for Israel after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and frequently speaks out against antisemitism, but he has grown increasingly frustrated about Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.
″Given its historic commitment to a just and sustainable peace in the Middle East, I have decided that France will recognize the state of Palestine,” Macron posted. ″Peace is possible.”
Thursday’s announcement came soon after the U.S. cut short Gaza cease-fire talks in Qatar, claiming Hamas wasn’t showing good faith.
It also came days before France and Saudi Arabia are co-hosting a conference at the U.N. next week about a two-state solution. Last month, Macron expressed his “determination to recognize the state of Palestine,” and he has pushed for a broader movement toward a two-state solution.
Momentum has been building against Israel in recent days. Earlier this week, France and more than two dozen mostly European countries condemned Israel’s restrictions on aid shipments into the territory and the killings of hundreds of Palestinians trying to reach food.
Macron will join the leaders of Britain and Germany for emergency talks Friday on Gaza, how to get food to the hungry and how to stop fighting.
“We are clear that statehood is the inalienable right of the Palestinian people. A ceasefire will put us on a path to the recognition of a Palestinian state and a two-state solution which guarantees peace and security for Palestinians and Israelis,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in announcing the call.
“The suffering and starvation unfolding in Gaza is unspeakable and indefensible,” Starmer said.
Israel’s genocidal war has been raging for nearly two years since the October 2023 Hamas incursion caused around 1,200 deaths and took 251 hostages from southern Israel.
Israel has since killed nearly 60,000 Palestinians in Gaza, reduced most of the territory to ruins and forced nearly the entire population to flee their homes multiple times.
Last November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for its war on the enclave.
Israel annexed east Jerusalem shortly after the 1967 war and considers it part of its capital. In the West Bank, it has built scores of settlements that are now home to over 500,000 Jewish settlers with Israeli citizenship. The territory’s 3 million Palestinians live under Israeli military rule, with the Palestinian Authority exercising limited autonomy in population centers.
The last serious peace talks broke down in 2009, when Netanyahu returned to power. Most of the international community considers the establishment of a viable Palestinian state to be the only realistic solution to the century-old conflict.
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