France plans to recognise a Palestinian state within months and could make the move at a United Nations conference in New York in June on settling the Israel-Palestinian conflict, President Emmanuel Macron has said.
"We must move towards recognition, and we will do so in the coming months," Mr Macron told France 5 television in an interview broadcast yesterday.
"Our aim is to chair this conference with Saudi Arabia in June, where we could finalise this movement of mutual recognition by several parties," he added.
"I will do it because I believe that at some point it will be right and because I also want to participate in a collective dynamic, which must also allow all those who defend Palestine to recognise Israel in turn, which many of them do not do," he added.
Such recognition would allow France "to be clear in our fight against those who deny Israel's right to exist -- which is the case with Iran - and to commit ourselves to collective security in the region," he added.
France has long championed a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, including after the 7 October 2023 attack by Palestinian militants Hamas on Israel.
However formal recognition of a Palestinian state by France would mark a major policy switch.
A Hamas official said that the militant group welcomed the announcement, hailing it as an "important step".
"France, as a country with political weight and a permanent member of the (UN) Security Council, has the ability to influence the course of fair solutions and push towards ending the occupation and achieving the aspirations of the Palestinian people," Mahmud Mardawi told AFP.
Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has denounced Mr Macron's announcement, saying it would be a "prize" for terrorism.
"A unilateral recognition of a fictional Palestinian state, by any country, in the reality that we all know, will be a prize for terror and a boost for Hamas," Mr Saar said on X.
"These kind of actions will not bring peace, security and stability in our region closer -- but the opposite: they only push them further away."
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However Palestinian minister of state for foreign affairs Varsen Aghabekian Shahin said France's recognition of Palestinian statehood "would be a step in the right direction in line with safeguarding the rights of the Palestinian people and the two-state solution".
Nearly 150 countries recognise a Palestinian state.
In May 2024, Ireland, Norway and Spain announced recognition, followed by Slovenia in June, in moves partly fuelled by condemnation of Israel's bombing of Gaza that followed the 7 October attacks.
France would be the most significant European power to recognise a Palestinian state, a move the United States has also long resisted.
In Egypt earlier this week, Mr Macron held summit talks with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan's King Abdullah II and also made clear he was strongly opposed to any displacement or annexation in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
US President Donald Trump has suggested turning Gaza into the "Riviera of the Middle East" with the Palestinians moving elsewhere - a suggestion that has sparked bitter condemnation.
Mr Macron responded that Gaza was "not a real estate project."
"Simplistic thinking sometimes doesn't help," he added, and, in a message to Mr Trump said: "Perhaps it would be wonderful if one day it developed in an extraordinary way, but our responsibility is to save lives, restore peace, and negotiate a political framework."
"If all this doesn't exist, no one will invest. Today, no one will invest a cent in Gaza," he said.
