A piece of France in the Holy Land is at the heart of diplomatic tensions between Paris and Tel Aviv. The visit to Jerusalem of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Noël Barrot, this Thursday, November 7, was disrupted after Israeli police “armed” et “without permission”according to him, entered a religious site belonging to France.
The incident took place within the confines of the Éléona national domain, owned by France since the 19th century. The site is located on the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem, the Palestinian part of the city occupied and annexed by Israel since 1967. It is one of the four high places of spirituality belonging to France in the Holy City, today 'now managed by the French Consulate General in Jerusalem.
The French domain in the Holy Land
During the second half of the 19th century, France acquired four possessions in Jerusalem, mostly in the eastern part of the city. The first to become private property of the French state was the Sainte-Anne church, offered in 1856 to Napoleon III by the Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid I, in gratitude for his support during the Crimean War.
This Romanesque church, built by the crusaders in the 12th century, was the scene of previous incidents between France and Israel, on two occasions. Jacques Chirac, visiting Jerusalem in 1996, refused to enter the building until the armed Israeli soldiers who were there left the premises. A similar scene occurred in January 2020, during the visit of Emmanuel Macron, who in turn demanded that the Israeli security services leave French domain.
France also owns the Éléona domain, at the heart of new diplomatic tensions between France and Israel. The site was first purchased at the end of the 19th century by Princess Héloïse de la Tour d'Auvergne who had a cloister built there, designed by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. This frames the cave, considered by tradition as a refuge of Christ in Jerusalem and the place of teaching the Pater to the disciples. The princess donated it to the French state in 1868.
Third national domain in Jerusalem, the Tomb of the Kings, is the only Israelite site of the four French enclaves in the Holy Land. The site had been excavated in 1863 by French archaeologists, and acquired by the Pereire family who offered it to the French state in 1886.
Since 1873, France has finally owned the monastery of Abou Gosh, a former crusader commandery with church and crypt, built in the 12th century by the Knights Hospitaller of Saint-Jean. Located west of Jerusalem, the estate was offered to France by the Ottoman Empire in compensation for its loss of the Saint-Georges-de-Lod church, given to the Greek Orthodox in 1871.
The Pious Establishments in Rome and Loreto
France's possession of places of worship abroad is not limited to Jerusalem. The State owns five Roman ecclesiastical properties through the Pious Establishments of France in Rome and Loreto, a foundation under the supervision of the French embassy in the Vatican.
Today they include the church of the Sainte-Trinité-des-Monts, the church of Saint-André-et-Saint-Claude-des-Francs-Comtois-de-Bourgogne, the church of Saint-Louis-des- French, the Saint-Nicolas-des-Lorrains church, the Saint-Yves-des-Bretons church. The Pieux Établissements also administer 13 buildings in the historic center of Rome, the rents of which (around 4.5 million euros per year) are used to maintain French heritage and the priests and religious who bring it to life.
The foundation has been criticized for its management “approximate, inefficient and risky” of French ecclesiastical property in Rome, in a report by the Court of Auditors published in September.
Non-religious heritage
Other little pieces of France exist throughout the world, but which are not religious sanctuaries. This is the case of Villa Medici in Rome, or of the Mundat forest on the Franco-German border, part of which is located in Germany.
The British island of Saint Helena, located in the Atlantic Ocean between Angola and Brazil, is also home to buildings and land linked to the exile of Napoleon I and belonging to the French state since 1857. .
Finally, Victor Hugo's house on the island of Guernsey is also a French property – more precisely of the Paris town hall – on the dependency of the British Crown.
