France to recognize Palestinian statehood

France will establish formal diplomatic relations with Palestine, President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday.

“True to its historic commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, I have decided that France will recognize the State of Palestine,” Macron said in a statement posted online, pledging to formally announce the move at a meeting of the United Nations in September.

“The urgency today is to end the war in Gaza and to provide aid to the civilian population,” he wrote. “The French people want peace in the Middle East. It is up to us, the French, together with the Israelis, the Palestinians, and our European and international partners, to demonstrate that it is possible.”

The decision comes shortly after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he would convene an “emergency call” with the country’s E3 partners — France, Germany and Italy — on Friday to “discuss what we can do urgently to stop the killing and get people the food they desperately need.”

Eleven out of 27 EU member countries have already recognized Palestinian statehood, including Romania, Sweden, Ireland and Bulgaria.

The U.N. has warned that Israel is blocking sufficient aid from reaching Gaza, where a growing number of starvation-related deaths have been reported. “People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses,” said Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

Israel denies it is orchestrating a blockade of the war-torn territory. In an interview with POLITICO on Thursday, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar insisted that “the problem is the U.N. is not distributing [aid].”

The U.N. has warned that Israel is blocking sufficient aid from reaching Gaza. | Mohammed Saber/EPA

The EU’s chief diplomat, Kaja Kallas, announced a deal with Israel earlier this month to let more aid trucks into Gaza. The bloc is assessing its options after finding the country in breach of its human rights obligations under an association agreement, with foreign ministers slated to discuss potential consequences during a meeting next month.