French President Emmanuel Macron spoke out on Saturday October 5 in favor of stopping arms deliveries to Israel which are used in the conflict in the Gaza Strip. “I think that today, the priority is that we return to a political solution, that we stop delivering weapons to carry out the fighting in Gaza”, he declared during the show “Etcetera” on France Inter. “France does not deliver any”he added during this interview recorded on 1er october.
In April, Sébastien Lecornu, Minister of the Armed Forces, assured that French exports to Israel represent only a very small percentage of French defense exports: 0.2%, out of a total of 27 billion euros in 2022, or around 15 million euros for deliveries of armaments, and 34 million euros, out of a total of 8.8 billion, for so-called “dual-use” goods. These licenses concern “mainly transfers of spare parts”he said.
But these transfers cover a wide range of components, sometimes key to the manufacture of more complex equipment. On March 26, the investigative media Disclosed and the website Marsactu thus revealed the presence, in the port of Marseille, of a cargo of links for small caliber ammunition, intended for a subsidiary of the Israeli defense giant Elbit. If it appeared that the license granted only allowed, according to the Ministry of the Armed Forces, re-export to third countries, and no use by the Israeli army, this information highlighted the ambiguity of diplomatic exchanges. military between France and the Hebrew State.
“We are not being heard”
For his part, American President Joe Biden has so far refused to use arms against Israel, apart from suspending a delivery of bombs in May. The United Kingdom, for its part, announced in September the suspension of around thirty arms export licenses to Israel out of a total of 350, following an examination concluding that “a risk” that they are used in violation of international humanitarian law in the conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip which followed the unprecedented attack of the Palestinian Islamist movement on Israeli soil on October 7, 2023.
The French president deplored that the lines are not moving in Gaza, despite all the diplomatic efforts made to obtain a ceasefire, in particular with Israel. “I think we are not being heard. I said it again to the Prime Minister [Benyamin] Netanyahu and I think [que] it is a mistake, including for the security of Israel tomorrow”underlined Emmanuel Macron. “We see it clearly in our public opinions, we see it in an even more terrible way in the public opinions of the region, it is basically a resentment which is being born, a hatred which is nourished by this”he added.
After the launch of the Israeli operation against the pro-Iranian Islamist movement Hezbollah in Lebanon, Emmanuel Macron also recalled that the “priority is to avoid escalation”. “The Lebanese people cannot in turn be sacrificed and Lebanon cannot become a new Gaza”he insisted.