Emmanuel Macron continues to blow hot and cold. A few days after having “clarified” his comments urging the IDF to stop its strikes killing “babies, women and elderly people” in Gaza, the President of the Republic took advantage of a rare state visit to Switzerland to defend the “balanced” position », which has “never varied”, from France regarding the war between Israel and Hamas.
“The French position is clear. It is part of our history (…), which is both to have a historic commitment to Israel and to never compromise on Israel’s right to live in peace. in the region, (and to support) the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people and (to) continue to work for a two-state solution,” he said this Wednesday evening, November 15, from the Swiss capital, Bern. “There will be no security for Israel if there is not a political outlet for the Palestinian question,” he added. “This position (…) is the one that I defended a few years ago (…) This position is exactly the one that I expressed to the French when I spoke on the 12th last October,” shortly after the Hamas terrorist attack.
Emmanuel Macron took advantage of this speech to condemn “with the greatest firmness” the bombings of civilian infrastructure in Gaza. “We condemn in the strongest terms all bombings of civilians, in particular of civilian infrastructure which must be protected under our international law and humanitarian law,” he said.
At the same time, the head of state justified his absence from the march against anti-Semitism, which took place on Sunday in Paris, affirming that the debate on his presence “had no reason to be”. “If my position on anti-Semitism could have been ambiguous for a single second, I understand that I could have been asked to clarify it. But it never was, and I was relentless on the subject. And to tackle the National Rally: “On two occasions, I fought the National Front which became the National Rally, whose genes also come from there.”
According to Emmanuel Macron, the “place of a President of the Republic is not to go to a march”. “My role is to work for the release of our hostages, and to continue to preserve the unity of our country during this period, and to never send one person back to the other.” And to proclaim: “Protecting French people of Jewish faith does not mean pillorying French people of Muslim faith.”
In this sense, Emmanuel Macron “condemned with the greatest force” the desecration of ten Jewish steles in a German military cemetery, in Oise. We must fight “against all forms of anti-Semitism. They have no place in the Republic (…) and we will not give up on this fight.” “This fight involves the education of our children, of our young people, who today also confuse too many things, and we must remember history,” he finally indicated.