A Response to the French Ambassador in Israel

Recently, the French ambassador to Israel, Frédéric Journès, described Israeli criticism of his country as a “staged hostility” toward France that was undeserved. Benjamin Canet, a citizen of Israel, France, and the United States, responded to him here: “No, ambassador: Israel’s anger with France is not ‘staged,’ it is earned – opinion,” by Benjamin Canet, Jerusalem Post, May 30, 2026:

In his recent op-ed, French Ambassador Frédéric Journès laments what he calls the “staged hostility” of the Israeli public toward France. He paints a picture of a misunderstood ally, wounded by the “anger” of a nation at war.

As a citizen of France, the United States, and Israel, someone who equally loves the cultures of my three countries, and someone who is politically active against the current Israeli government, I feel uniquely qualified to tell the ambassador: you are not being misunderstood. You are being seen with painful clarity….

The ambassador defends France’s stance on Lebanon, but he ignores the rhetoric that accompanied it. To hear Macron accuse Israel of “spreading barbarism in the region” as it fought to stop Hezbollah’s relentless rocket fire was a breaking point. It felt less like a strategic critique and more like a defense of France’s historical raison d’être in Lebanon at the expense of Israeli lives. To use the word “barbarism” against the victims of October 7 while they fight an Iranian proxy is an inversion of reality that no “friend” should utter.

Then came the diplomatic sucker punch: the announcement of an upcoming, unconditional recognition of a Palestinian state. By moving toward recognition then, without a negotiated settlement or the release of our brothers and sisters still rotting in Hamas tunnels, France effectively rewarded the October 7 massacre. This move did not advance peace; it actively derailed the delicate negotiations to free our hostages by signaling to Hamas that it need only wait for the West to hand it a victory….

We don’t need “smooth conversations,” Mr. Ambassador. We need an ally that doesn’t treat our survival as a bargaining chip for its own regional relevance.

Our anger isn’t “staged.” It is the natural response of a people that expected more from the patrie of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.

Israel’s anger with France is neither “staged” nor “manufactured.” It is legitimate fury that France’s treatment of Israel ever since the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023 has prompted. While in the immediate aftermath of those attacks — within days — many leaders, including Biden of the U.S., Scholz of Germany, and Rishi Sunak of the U.K. rushed to Israel within a week to express their sympathy and to declare their solidarity with Israel, French President Emmanuel Macron held back, arriving in Israel on October 24, more than two weeks after the attacks.

Since then, Macron shamefully decided that the time had come to recognize a “state of Palestine,” though such a “state” has neither a defined territory, nor a single government, nor a defined population.

And then France banned Israeli defense companies from displaying their wares at defense industry exhibitions, making it harder for them to attract customers, and thus delivering a blow to the companies — including the big three, Elbit, Rafael Israel Aerospace Industries — on which the embattled Jewish state so greatly depends.

Finally, instead of supporting Israel’s war against the terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon, which by UNSC 1701 is required to disarm, but continues to launch missiles and drones at Israeli civilians, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot on May 31 called for an “emergency meeting” of the United Nations Security Council over Israel’s ongoing military operation in Lebanon. In France’s view, not Hezbollah, but Israel should be in the dock, for its military operations inside Lebanon.

And those are the reasons why the Israeli government and the people of Israel are angry with France. Yet the French ambassador to Israel insists that his country has not been hostile to Israel, and that the Israeli government has deliberately stoked anger against France in what the ambassador calls “staged” — i.e., inauthentic — anger. He is wrong. The Israeli anger with France is well-deserved, and likely to last until either Jordan Bardella or Marine Le Pen of the anti-Muslim migrant party, the National Rally, both of whom, unsurprisingly, are firm supporters of Israel, replaces President Macron.