Since the 19th century, several sacred places in Jerusalem have constituted the national domain of France, including Eleona, where a Franco-Israeli diplomatic incident occurred.
The visit to Jerusalem by French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot was marked Thursday by a diplomatic incident, when Israeli police entered “army” et “without authorization”according to the minister, on a site managed by France: the church of Eleona, located at the top of the Mount of Olives. Jean-Noël Barrot denounced a “unacceptable situation” and refused to enter this pilgrimage site, while Israeli police arrested two French gendarmes on the spot, journalists noted.
The Eleona (from the Greek elaion, “the olive grove”) is located on the site where, according to biblical tradition, Jesus Christ taught his disciples the prayer of the Our Father. Religious buildings were built there from the 4th century: a church, then a cloister and a sanctuary. The site today attracts many pilgrims.
The Eleona Church is part of several French possessions in Jerusalem, called the French national domain in the Holy Land, and which are the property of the French Republic, which manages and administers them via the French Consulate General in Jerusalem. In addition to Eleona, this area also includes the monastery of Abu Gosh (a former hospital commandery which became a monastery), the tomb of the Kings of Judea, and the Sainte-Anne church where the mother of the Virgin Mary is said to have lived.
This national domain is a legacy of the 19th century, when France acquired several holy places in Jerusalem. Indeed after the Crusades in the Holy Land, the crusader leaders had divided the Levant region into several fiefdoms, then the Ottomans gradually took possession of the ancient Latin States of the East after their fall. But a few centuries later, the Sainte-Anne church was offered to Napoleon III by the Turkish sultan in 1856 and became the first possession of the French state in Jerusalem.
The church of Eleona was acquired by a French aristocrat, Héloïse de la Tour d'Auvergne, in 1856, before she donated it to France on her death in 1874.
Two previous diplomatic incidents
It was at Sainte-Anne church that two diplomatic incidents similar to that of this Thursday occurred. In October 1996, when Jacques Chirac made his first visit to Israel as French president, he lost his temper with the Israeli security services who escorted his stroll through the streets of Jerusalem, before demanding that Israeli soldiers having took place inside the church left the premises – which they ended up doing. “I don’t want armed people on French territory… I’ll wait!” Jacques Chirac declared in particular.
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In January 2020, Emmanuel Macron lost his temper for the same reasons when faced with Israeli police officers who blocked the entrance to the church in front of him.
What law applies in these French possessions?
Although France's national domain in Jerusalem has been part of Israeli territory since the conquest of East Jerusalem by the Israeli armed forces in 1967, it is under the control of the French consulate general in Jerusalem. “This means that an armed police officer or soldier from another country does not have the right to enter without the agreement of the French consulate”believes he can move forward Frédéric Encel, doctor in geopolitics and specialist in the Middle East.
In fact, some confusion sometimes exists. No property of a State on the soil of another State, not even an embassy or a consulate, constitutes a “territory” of the country represented. But embassies or consulates are “diplomatic influence”that is to say, under the terms in particular of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961, that these are spaces protected from any intrusion by the authorities of the country of residence.
However, according to the former French ambassador to Israel, Gérard Araud, interviewed by Le FigaroFrance's national domain in Jerusalem is not a diplomatic hold in the same way as the embassy would be. “So the law of the host country applies”analyzes the diplomat. Contradicting therefore Jacques Chirac who makes French possessions in Jerusalem “French territories”. Gérard Araud adds: “The objection we could make is that we do not recognize Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem, but in fact we have respected it…”
In other words, the arrest of the two gendarmes in the grounds of the Eleona church constitutes less a violation of French territory than an important diplomatic incident between the two countries. France has also indicated that it will summon the Israeli ambassador to Paris following this incident.
