Emmanuel Macron preferred to take his time. A week after American President Joe Biden, the head of state arrived this Tuesday, October 24 in Tel Aviv (Israel) to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Before going to Ramallah, in the West Bank, for a meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority.
The president’s visit comes more than two weeks after the salvo of Hamas attacks against the Hebrew country, which left more than 1,400 dead, including 30 French nationals. During this trip which will end on Wednesday, Emmanuel Macron must discuss the “security of Israel”, the “fight against terrorist groups”, the non-escalation of the conflict and the resumption of a “political process” towards a solution. two states. From General de Gaulle to Emmanuel Macron, French presidents have tried, one by one, to defend peace in the Middle East.
Before the very first visit of a French head of state to Israel, how can we not mention the reception at the Élysée of the founder of Israel Ben Gurion by the father of the Fifth Republic? General de Gaulle, who never visited Israel, then expressed France’s “admiration, affection and confidence” in the Jewish state.
But French foreign policy, pro-Israeli since 1948, took a turn in the 1960s, notably with the declaration of an embargo on arms sales after the preventive attack by the Hebrew state against Egypt, which triggers the Six-Day War.
Shortly after, the first president of the Fifth Republic gave a press conference in which he said a sentence which will remain as famous as it is controversial. The head of state affirms that “some” fear that “the Jews, hitherto dispersed, but who had remained what they had always been, that is to say an elite people, sure of itself and dominating, come, once gathered in the site of their former greatness, to change into ardent and conquering ambition the very moving wishes which they had formed for nineteen centuries.
These words have the effect of an explosion in Israel. And if Ben-Gurion himself exonerates the general by affirming that the “unjust critics” did not examine his remarks “with all the seriousness required”, the relationship between France and Israel is lastingly marked by this turning point. The philosopher and thinker of international relations Raymond Aron even goes so far as to speak of a “new anti-Semitism” in the columns of Le Figaro. “General de Gaulle wanted, after the independence of Algeria, to renew good relations with the Arab countries which had broken diplomatically with France,” explains Denis Bauchard, former ambassador to Jordan and advisor for North Africa and the Middle East at IFRI. It is in this spirit of balance that his successors will operate, each in their own way.
After General de Gaulle, neither Georges Pompidou nor Valéry Giscard d’Estaing set foot on Israeli soil. In March 1982, François Mitterrand therefore became the first French head of state to visit Jerusalem since the creation of the Hebrew state in 1948. From the podium of the Knesset (Israeli parliament), on March 4, he delivered a speech historical in which he reiterates his attachment to the existence and security of Israel.
Faithful to Gaullist doctrine, François Mitterrand nevertheless supports “the irreducible right to live of the Jewish people”, as well as that of “the peoples who surround them” – in particular the Palestinians of Gaza or the West Bank and the Lebanese. “We cannot ask anyone to give up their identity,” he says. Favorable for a two-state solution, he said he was ready to support peace negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), led at the time by Yasser Arafat, if the latter renounced armed struggle and recognized Israel’s right to exist. “Dialogue presupposes prior and mutual recognition of the other’s right to exist. Dialogue presupposes that each party can follow through on its rights, which for the Palestinians, as for others, can mean, when the time comes, a state,” he asserts.
Seven years later, from the Élysée to the Institute of the Arab World, Yasser Arafat made a very notable visit to France, going so far as to declare obsolete the passage, in the PLO charter, which affirms the necessity of the destruction of the State of Israel.
In October 1996, a year after his accession to the Élysée, Jacques Chirac began his first major diplomatic tour to six countries in eight days: Syria, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt. It is in East Jerusalem that the head of state unleashes his famous “presidential anger” against the Israeli security services, supposed to protect him.
As he wanders through the old town, Jacques Chirac attacks, in shaky English and with a very pronounced French accent, the security agents who stand between him and the Palestinians who have come to greet him. “What do you want?” Me to go back to my plane and go back to France? Let them go, let them do. This is not a method, this is a provocation. This is provocation. Please stop now.” (What do you want? That I return to my plane and return to France? Is that what you want? Let them go, let them do it. It’s not a method. It’s a provocation . This is provocation. Please stop now.)
Also read: From Jerusalem to Bab el-Oued, Jacques Chirac was appreciated by the “Arab street”
In front of the Sainte-Anne church, owned by the French state, Jacques Chirac once again rails against the presence of Israeli soldiers. “I don’t want armed people on French territory, I’ll wait!”, he says. This coup, captured by television cameras, ensured him great popularity in Arab countries until after his death. A few hours after this eventful visit, Jacques Chirac also went to Ramallah in the West Bank, the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority, located about twenty kilometers north of Jerusalem.
Nicolas Sarkozy wants to erase the image left by the scandal of his predecessor. The head of state, undoubtedly the most “Israelophile” of his predecessors, made his first official trip to Tel Aviv in June 2008, the year of the sixtieth anniversary of the creation of the Hebrew state. During his speech to the Knesset, he praised the “friendship” that unites the two countries. “Israel is not alone!”, he says, assuring that France will “always” be at its side “when its existence is threatened”. The president is even welcomed as a “close friend” by his Israeli counterpart, Shimon Peres, who hails him as “a man of action who understands the importance of the moment”.
Also readBehind the scenes of Sarkozy’s trip to Israel
Although he is keen to warm up relations with Israel, Nicolas Sarkozy does not completely break with the historic position of Paris. “I am more convinced than ever that the security of Israel will only be truly ensured with the birth of the second state, the Palestinian state,” he asserts, aligning himself with the speech given in 1982 by François Mitterrand . “In reality, if he continued to generate a verbal ritual by condemning the settlements and approving the two-state solution, there has been no more commitment or pressure on Israel since his presidency,” analyzes Denis Bauchard.
It is also under the sign of Franco-Israeli “friendship” that François Hollande places his first official trip to Jerusalem. In November 2013, the head of state went to Israel with the aim of “encouraging” the peace negotiations which had just resumed.
During a dinner with the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, François Hollande expressed his desire to sing “a song of love for Israel and for its leaders”. The next day, in the Knesset, he delivered a long declaration of “friendship” and praised the “indestructible relationship” that binds France and Israel. Before setting out, more firmly, Paris’s line of conduct: “France’s position is known. It is a negotiated settlement so that the States of Israel and Palestine, both with Jerusalem as their capital, can coexist in peace and security.”
In January 2020, Emmanuel Macron strolled through the old city of Jerusalem in the footsteps of Jacques Chirac. As he approaches Sainte-Anne Church, the president signals to Israeli soldiers not to enter this French property.
Like a wink from history, the head of state relives a situation similar to that of his late predecessor. Seeing the security forces getting into position to secure the interior of the building, Emmanuel Macron lost his temper in English, again tinged with a pronounced French accent: “You know very well that it doesn’t work like that, and I say it with a lot of friendship for you… Because I believe that it has always been like that”. “There are rules, folks. We will respect them […] Things must happen as calmly as they have been happening since this morning. I’m not in danger inside. So don’t do things that are provocative.” Premeditation as a reference to Jacques Chirac? The person concerned has in any case denied any communication operation.
