Media Part said that French President Emmanuel Macron will take advantage of the football match between his country and Israel to reenact the friendship between the two sides, noting that the tone may rise at regular intervals between Paris and Tel Aviv, but French diplomacy remains cautious so far.
The website indicated – in a report written by Elias Ramadani – that announcing Macron’s desire to attend the match was a way to send a “message of brotherhood and solidarity with Israel” after the riots that followed the match in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
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Like Macron, Prime Minister Michel Barnier, the President of the Ile-de-France region, Valérie Pécresse, and former President Nicolas Sarkozy announced their desire to go to the match. Pécresse said she was “disturbed by the images coming from Amsterdam,” stressing that “the Republic cannot be intimidated.”
Interior Minister Bruno Rutayo adopted the same military tone and announced the deployment of a large police force to secure the football match.
The website considered that keeping the match on this date and in this place was not in the cards two months ago, but Macron personally decided to play the match as it was planned and then attend it, in a sign that he hopes will reach the Jewish community “which was greatly affected by his absence.” About the march against anti-Semitism on November 12, 2023, according to the website.
Insults and no punishments
Aside from a football match of little sporting importance – explains Media Part – these moves show the procrastination of the French executive authority in its dealings with Middle East issues, and its hesitation between multiple and contradictory aspirations, at a moment when France had to manage 3 different crises: the arrest of two of them by the Israeli authorities. It took place in Jerusalem, and an expected visit by a far-right Israeli minister, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (later cancelled), and the organization of this match a few days after the events in Amsterdam.
The first two events could have legitimized a strong reaction on the part of Paris, or even a diplomatic crisis between the two countries, but priority was given to the third, in the name of the legitimate emotion aroused by images of violence in the Netherlands, explains Mediapart.
Silence fell over the Elysee Palace – as the website says – after the Israeli police in Jerusalem arrested two French consulate gendarmes in a deliberate operation, when Israeli police officers entered the French consulate during the visit of French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, despite the French Foreign Ministry’s refusal to do so.
Despite the refusal of the Israeli ambassador to Paris to apologize, the diplomatic crisis that some expected will not happen in the end, and France will abandon making a lot of noise about this incident. Indeed, the two parties contented themselves with the two ministers writing to each other in order to close the issue, and French diplomacy confirmed – in Press release: “The necessary measures will be taken to ensure that such actions are not repeated.”
This incident reinforces – according to the site – the feeling of a form of indifference on the part of Israel towards Paris, whose protests do not seem to shake the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, because after every crisis Paris immediately takes care to extinguish the fire and restore the bond of friendship with Israel.
What comes after words?
Mathilde Bannot, head of the Proud France party group in the National Assembly, asked the Prime Minister, “How dare you welcome one of the cruelest faces of genocide in Gaza?” He responded by renewing his condemnation of Smotrich’s statements, stressing that there would be “no form of government contact with him.” In the end, the concert that was scheduled to be held in Paris was cancelled.
Representative Sabrina Al-Sabahi says jokingly, “The condemnation is good. We condemn the massacres, we condemn the famine, okay, but what then? Behind the words there is nothing tangible, and not doing anything means giving Netanyahu a blank check.”
However, the government recalled the sanctions taken against 28 extremist settlers in the West Bank, the strong words of the Head of State and the action of French diplomacy in international bodies.
The website indicated that France, aware of the loss of French influence in the region, is waiting for the great powers to change the situation, and perhaps the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States may resolve the conflict if he succeeds in convincing Israel to stop the massacre, in exchange for obtaining the long-awaited normalization with Arab countries.
However, the wait-and-see attitude adopted by France, at a time when deadly bombings continue in Gaza and Lebanon, constitutes a moral and legal danger.
Farah Safi, professor of law and vice president of the Association of Jurists for the Respect of International Law, believes that “France does not respect the obligations of international humanitarian law,” especially the Geneva Conventions, which “require it to use all available means to put an end to crimes.”
