Tensions between France and Israel continue to boil as President Emmanuel Macron threatens to intensify efforts to coerce the Middle East state into relenting its siege on the Gaza Strip.
Macron said Thursday that the French government is currently exploring the possibility of taking further steps to pressure Israel to abandon its war with Hamas, which has left Gaza devastated and on the verge of famine.
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“Discussions on this matter are ongoing,” Macron said. “We will decide in the next couple of days if we need to harden our tone and take concrete steps regarding Israel.”
He made the comments during a joint press conference with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at the Élysée Palace in Paris.
The Brazilian leader was more forceful in his condemnation of Israel, calling its military activity in Gaza a “premeditated genocide” being waged by a “far-right government … against the interests of its own people.”
“What is happening in Gaza is not a war. It’s a genocide being carried out by a highly prepared army against women and children,” Lula said during the joint conference with Macron. “We see a genocide unfold under our eyes day after day… It’s no longer possible to accept.”
Lula condemned the Oct. 7 massacre perpetrated by Hamas as a “terrorist” attack immediately after the tragedy, but has grown increasingly vocal in his opposition to how Israel has conducted its retaliatory campaign.
In February, he compared the war in Gaza to Adolf Hitler’s genocide of European Jews during World War II.
The Israel-Gaza question has plagued Macron for months as he tries to rally the European Union and other international bodies into more decisive action against Israel’s campaign in Gaza, which he claims is a threat to the “global order.”
He made this case at the Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore last week, where he compared the Israel-Hamas war to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, claiming that inaction on either front opens the door to further disintegration of geopolitical diplomacy.
“If we abandon Gaza, if we consider there is a free pass for Israel, even if we do condemn the terrorist attacks, we kill our own credibility in the rest of the world,” Macron said to an audience that included U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. “And this is why I think this is very important, in our current environment, to be consistent and to follow our principles, our rules, and to consider what is at stake is clearly the global order — and clearly what is at stake is our credibility to protect this global order.”
To this end, Macron said last month that recognizing a sovereign Palestinian state is “not only a moral duty, but a political necessity.”
The Israeli foreign ministry has accused the French president of a “crusade against the Jewish state,” and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he has “chosen to side with a murderous Islamist terrorist organization and echo its despicable propaganda, accusing Israel of blood libels.”
“We remember well what happened to Jews in France when they couldn’t defend themselves,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said last month. “President Macron should not lecture us on morality.”
Lula affirmed his agreement with Macron’s position on Thursday, saying that “recognition of a Palestinian state is a moral and human duty, and a political requirement for all world leaders.”
France is co-chairing an international conference this month with Saudi Arabia at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
Israel claimed the French government was preparing to recognize a Palestinian state unilaterally at the event, but French officials have denied that assertion.
The United States vetoed what it called a “performative resolution” at the U.N. Security Council on Thursday that would have called for an “immediate halt” on violence and ordered all hostages “immediately and unconditionally released.”
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It would have also ordered Israel to ensure that “civilians in Gaza must not starve and must have full and unimpeded access to aid.”
“The United States will not support any measure that fails to condemn Hamas and does not call for it to disarm and leave Gaza,” the U.S. Mission to the United Nations said in a statement. “Any effort in the Council must ensure Hamas can never again be a threat to Israel and should be supportive of our diplomatic efforts on the ground.”