Macron Wants to Recognize a Palestinian State? He Should Start by Recognizing 21st Century France

French President Emmanuel Macron has announced that France will recognize a Palestinian state.

Well, that makes perfect sense. After all, we’re talking about an indigenous people whose ancestral homeland was stolen by foreigners with no real connection to the region. I am, of course, referring to — France.

Surely, the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo are turning over in their secular graves with laughter.

France’s move isn’t truly about expressing solidarity with oppressed minorities — though that’s how it plays in progressive media circles. Macron’s decision is not humanitarian, and it has nothing to do with sympathy for starving children in Gaza. Nor is it rooted in a genuine desire to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As usual, it’s a domestic political calculation: an attempt to appease France’s growing Muslim population at the expense of its Jewish minority.

Macron knows full well that Muslims in France now vastly outnumber Jews. He’s pulling yet another rabbit out of the Élysée Palace hat: recognition of a Palestinian state. He’s naively hoping it might buy him some quiet in the streets of Marseilles and Saint-Denis.

Let’s be clear: this is not about peace in the Middle East. It’s about buying stability at home — even if it means rewarding the ideological supporters and perpetrators of October 7th.

But here’s the core fallacy: any radical Muslim elements that Macron hopes to win over with these declarative gestures aren’t interested in symbols. They want a new reality. And that reality, in some cases, is not a liberal republic. It’s an upgrade of the French state to align more closely with their religious and social values. Anyone who believes that recognizing a Palestinian state will create social harmony in France will soon discover that some areas of Paris, Lyon, and Toulouse are already informally governed by social norms rooted in Sharia law.

We’re talking about areas where women can’t walk outside in a tank top. Where pork can’t be sold. Where the Holocaust can’t be taught, and LGBTQ rights are unmentionable.

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité? Macron recites these words beautifully on Bastille Day, but they are vanishing from some parts of the streets of France. Not all Muslims in France feel this way, of course. But there is a definite population that does. And Macron’s “recognition of Palestine” is a smokescreen to cover just that.

American Jews, who are fighting to preserve liberal Jewish life in the face of rising campus-born antisemitism disguised as “progressive justice,” must take note: what starts at the Élysée doesn’t stay in France. When leaders surrender to ideological blackmail in the name of peace, they always sacrifice the Jews first.

France — the country of Descartes, Voltaire, and Emile Zola — has become a republic that meekly removes statues, erases the legacy of the Enlightenment, and quietly bends to the sensitivities of religious extremism. And now it wants to lecture the Middle East about peace?

Perhaps it’s time France looked to its own problems first.

Itamar Tzur is the author of The Invention of the Palestinian Narrative, and an Israeli scholar specializing in Middle Eastern history. He holds a Bachelor’s degree with honors in Jewish History and a Master’s degree with honors in Middle Eastern studies. As a senior member of the “Forum Kedem for Middle Eastern Studies and Public Diplomacy,” he leverages his academic expertise to deepen understanding of regional dynamics and historical contexts.

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