An announcement that took everyone short. In the evening of this Thursday, July 24, Emmanuel Macron said that France was going to recognize the state of Palestine during the United Nations General Assembly next September in New York.
“The urgency is to concretize the only viable solution to rely on the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people, to end terrorism and violence in all its forms, and allow Israel and all the countries of the region to live in peace and security,” he wrote, in a letter addressed to the Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority Mahmoud Abbas. A decision criticized by Israel, Benyamin Netanyahu denouncing in particular “encouragement to terrorism”.
But this announcement by Emmanuel Macron does not come out of nowhere. It is part of the continuity of the previous positions held by France on the question, Paris being favorable to a solution to two states – but only that of Israel is today recognized.
Palestine recognized by 147 countries around the world
147 countries recognize, to date, the Palestinian state. Last May, Ireland, Norway and Spain had joined the ten European countries which recognize Palestine, followed by Slovenia in June 2024. France became the first country, member of the G7, to make such an announcement.
But concretely what will it change? “From a point of view of pure international law, recognition has only declarative value,” explains Insaf Rezagui, a doctor of public international law, associate researcher of the Thucydide Center (University of Paris-Panthéon-Assas) and at the French Institute for the Middle East in Jerusalem, in a France Culture program. It also recalls that it is the Montevideo convention of 1933 which defines what a state is.
According to this specialist in the question, four criteria are necessary to recognize a state: first of all, it takes a government, then a territory and a population and finally “the ability to enter into contact with international society”.
Such a decision would also allow Palestine to open an embassy in France.
“Enforce the rights of this entity to become a sovereign state”
Bertrand Badie, professor emeritus at Sciences-Po, recalls in opinion that “resolutions” were taken by the United Nations General Assembly in 1947. “I am thinking of the 181 and 194 which provided for the creation of a Palestinian State”, he develops. He also specifies that the configuration of the Palestinian state “was still defined by international law”.
This expert insists on the fact “that a recognition” obliges “the countries which make it, if this recognition is not international. “Once the Palestinian State is recognized, those who recognized it must enforce the rights of this entity to become a sovereign state,” continues Bertrand Badie.
“It is not only a symbolic question or a political positioning issue, but a diplomatic tool at the service of the two -state solution (With Israel and Palestine) living side by side, in peace and security, ”explained the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in May 2024.
In other words: “If we do not recognize one of the two states, there cannot be a solution to two states”, explained at the same time Johann Soufi, lawyer and former head of the Legal Bureau of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza. A prospect that Israel’s block rejects.