Freshly returned from Uzbekistan, French President Emmanuel Macron raced off to visit western Brittany on Friday, November 3, after it had been hit hard by storm Ciaran, particularly the transport and electricity networks. "We have a struggle, which is to restore normal life as quickly as possible," he declared in the town of Plougastel-Daoulas, promising that the government would declare a state of natural disaster "everywhere where we will be able to do so." He also praised the organization of the relief effort, which "saved many lives," at a time when two people had lost their lives in France.
Macron on the same occasion announced a "humanitarian conference" would be held on November 9, as part of the Paris Peace Forum. European Union countries will be invited, as well as those from the Middle East, the G20, and several UN agencies and major NGOs. "The idea is to do the rounds of the major donors and accelerate aid to Gaza," asserted the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs. The Elysée said that this will be an "operational" meeting with the main donors.
In a country where many Muslims live side by side with Europe's largest Jewish community, the massacres perpetrated by Hamas on October 7, and Israel's retaliation, have rekindled fears of dramatic repercussions. "For several years now, French people have considered, much more than before, that international affairs concern them," observed Frédéric Dabi, managing director of the IFOP polling institute. "But since the Hamas attack, the level of anxiety has been spectacular." The October 13 murder of literature teacher Dominique Bernard in Arras by a young jihadist could have been "the match to a powder keg," noted the pollster.
Cautious in this "apocalyptic" moment, in the words of one of his former advisers, Macron stuck to conventional declarations. First, on October 12, he delivered a televised address urging the French people not to give in to division. Secondly, he visited Israel, and then Jordan and Egypt, aiming less at applying diplomatic influence to the region than at sending a domestic message: To show that he was taking care of the French hostages and working hard to prevent the massacre of civilians in the Gaza Strip.
"It's no Churchillian move," observed former Socialist MP Gilles Savary, "but a very clear-cut stance in favor of Israel would have risked setting things ablaze on the Muslim side. Between the risk of domestic chaos and that of World War III, Macron is walking on the edge." One month after the start of the conflict, Macron's entourage considers it something of a victory that he has angered neither the Muslim nor the Jewish community, despite an alarming surge in anti-Semitic acts in France.
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