Macron announced that he wants to recognize the state of Palestine.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced this Wednesday that France could recognize the Palestinian State in June, as part of a broader strategy to promote a process of mutual recognition between Arab countries and Israel, and to reactivate the two-state solution in the Middle East.

In an interview broadcast by the channel France 5, Macron expressed that the recognition will not be made due to external pressure, but because "at some point it will be the right thing to do."

The Frenchman added that he wants to be part of a collective dynamic that also allows those countries that support Palestine to begin recognizing the State of Israel, something that many of them, like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, still do not do.

The French leader explained that his government is working together with Saudi Arabia to co-chair an international conference in New York, scheduled for June, in which progress is expected toward mutual recognition among various states.

"Our goal is to chair this conference at some point in June, with Saudi Arabia, where we could finalize this movement of mutual recognition among various parties," he stated.

The initiative emerges after Macron's return from his visit to the Gaza border and his participation in a summit in Egypt, where he reaffirmed his commitment to seeking a sustainable political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Currently, 147 of the 193 member countries of the United Nations officially recognize the Palestinian State. Among Western countries, however, recognition has been limited.

The United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Japan have not yet taken this step. However, in May 2024, Spain, Ireland, and Norway formalized the recognition, joining seven other European Union (EU) member countries that had already done so: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Malta, Hungary, Poland, Sweden, and Romania.

Other European countries outside the EU, such as Ukraine, Albania, Serbia, Montenegro, and Belarus, have also recognized the state controlled by Hamas. The increase in recognitions has caused new diplomatic pressure on major European countries to follow the same path.

In February of this year, Macron had already declared that the recognition of Palestine "is not a taboo" for France. "We owe it to the Palestinians, whose aspirations have been trampled for too long. We owe it to the Israelis, who have suffered the greatest anti-Semitic massacre of our century. We owe it to a region that longs to escape chaos and revenge," he expressed then.

Macron's proposal caused divided reactions within the French political class. The socialist former president François Hollande supported the process if it includes mutual recognition.

"If this recognition occurs within a framework that allows countries that do not recognize Israel to do so, and vice versa, it is a good process," he stated on RTL. However, he recalled that this type of recognition is "purely declarative", and emphasized that the essential thing is for a Palestinian state to exist without Hamas as the dominant political actor.

Meanwhile, the leader of France Insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, celebrated the announcement. On social media, he highlighted that Macron seems to be approaching the positions that his party has long defended.

"A year and six months after LFI, these people finally understand that the political solution is the only possible one. In the end, the position of LFI is presented as the only concrete political and human solution," he wrote.

However, the French public as well as right-wing parties have viewed with great concern the possibility of France officially recognizing the Palestinian state.