After much hesitation, Emmanuel Macron could recognize a Palestinian state "in June." "We must move toward recognition [of a Palestinian state], and so, in the coming months, we will," announced the French president in an interview broadcast on the television channel France 5 on Wednesday, April 9. The recording was made the day before, at the end of a two-day visit to Egypt where Macron, when asked about the subject, had evaded the question. He had explained that the "priority" was to lift the humanitarian blockade imposed since March 2 by Israel and to work toward a new ceasefire, currently under discussion between Israel and Hamas, through the mediation of the United States, Egypt and Qatar. Since the end of the truce on March 18, 1,400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli strikes, according to the enclave's Ministry of Health.

Until this point, Paris insisted that such recognition must be "useful" and had played for time. Macron is now seeking to keep alive the possibility of a two-state solution, Israel and Palestine. But this symbolic gesture is only one of the parameters of a peace process that the resumption of bombings on March 18 in the Gaza Strip by Israel makes more complicated, 18 months after the Hamas terrorist attacks on October 7, 2023. The issue is also one of the items under discussion ahead of a conference on the subject to be held in June at the United Nations in New York, which Macron will chair alongside Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (nicknamed MBS).

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