Macron’s Move: Palestine Recognition Signals French Autonomy
French president Emanuel Macron made headlines last week by stating that France would recognize the state of Palestine. Again.
He made similar headlines earlier this year as he geared up to cohost the two states solution conference along with Saudi Arabia.
The question is why does France’s recognition of Palestine matter in the greater scheme of global affairs?
After all, Palestine is recognized by the majority of the international community, with the standouts mostly among Western states in the Global North. Eleven members of the EU recognize Palestine, among them several states who have recognized it over the past two years (Ireland, Slovenia and Spain).
Yet every time the French president alludes to the possibility of recognition, he elicits reflexive rebuttals from Washington and Israel, as well as broad support from the Global South.
So what makes France’s potential recognition special?
France’s Positioning
The French republic has a particular status in the international community that lends significant weight to its recognition of Palestine.
France is one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Of those five, three are Western states, the U.S., the UK, and France. The other two, Russia and China, already recognize the State of Palestine since 1988. If France were to take this step, it would be the first time since the inception of the UN that a majority of the Security Council recognizes Palestine.
This would signal an important shift in the global geopolitical balance within the existing global order.
France is also a member of the G7, one of the most powerful blocs of political and economic power on the international arena. If it were to recognize Palestine, it would be the first of that bloc to do so, breaking a collective posture of non recognition spanning decades. Breaking this unspoken taboo could precipitate other members of the bloc to do the same, particularly as their relations with the U.S. soured somewhat since Trump began his second term and ruffled their feathers. Canada in particular might be incentivized to follow France’s lead.
France is also one of the more prominent members of NATO. It is one of the top five contributors to the NATO common budget and is one of the more forceful governments supporting the expansion of defense spending in Europe.
Fourteen of the 32 members of the alliance already recognize Palestine, and with France, the split between recognition and non-recognition edges closer to 50%.
In addition to its key NATO role, Paris is one of the most influential EU states. Along with Germany, France is one of the heavyweights on the continent, has significant political pull, and is the second largest contributor to the EU budget. Similar to the NATO situation, its recognition would carry significant weight throughout the bloc’s policy toward the Middle East.
Additionally, France is a member of the G20, a bloc that brings in a mixture of states from both the Global North and the Global South, unlike the previous groups mentioned above. This group, that boasts nineteen member states in addition to the EU and the African Union (AU) currently has nine members that recognize the state of Palestine. If France were to recognize, the majority of the membership of this bloc as well would lie within the recognition camp.
With these elements in mind, France’s recognition would precipitate a shift in the balance of several key global blocs, spanning the UN, the Global North, and the broader international community.
Recognition as Independence
Timing in international relations is crucial. Macron has been publicly toying with the idea of recognizing Palestine for some months now, testing the waters, the responses, the potential repercussions and the potential rewards.
Remember that when it comes to international relations and government decisions, interests, not ethics, reign supreme, no matter what the public statements say. In the Elysee, the calculus now hinges on several key factors that are entangled with France and Europe’s global role in the dawn of a new global dynamic.
Macron has been pushing for increased strategic autonomy in Europe for several years, an uphill battle in the face of the overwhelming American influence in the continent nurtured over decades of dependency. With Trump’s ascension to the presidency for a second term, Emanuel’s push gained renewed vigor. The shift in American foreign policy jolted European leaders to the necessity of securing their strategic autonomy as they felt the pinch of their dependency limit their options on the global scene.
So how does recognizing Palestine figure into this particular equation?
Simply stated, the recognition of Palestine by France, if it were to go through, would be an indicator of a budding independence from American influence. It would signal a shift in French -and potentially broader European- foreign policy that is no longer beholden to the united Western front that shaped much of the collective policy of the Global North over the past decades.
Paris is also unlikely to take this step haphazardly and has, as I pointed out above, been gauging its potential repercussions. If it were to do so in September, it would mean that it has assessed that it can, along with its existing partners in Europe and beyond, effectuate enough of a shift in Europe to have an impact on European foreign policy moving forward.
France recognizing the state of Palestine is therefore partially about France asserting its own independence.
Global Outlook
Macron’s statements are not only indicative of France’s position, but also of its relation with the American role in European foreign affairs.
Since the 1991 collapse of the USSR and the bipolar world order, the unipolar order that supplanted it with the U.S. at its epicenter has seen Europe firmly ensconced in the U.S. orbit. As American influence grew in Western Europe, and NATO expanded eastward drawing in former iron curtain countries, foreign policy on the continent aligned with Washington’s global outlook.
Peaking in 2022 when Washington succeeded in drawing in a reluctant France and Germany toward its adversarial position vis-avis Moscow in the leadup to the Russia Ukraine war, this influence came to define the transatlantic relation: the U.S. sets the course, and Europe toes the line.
Macron’s lamentations of this dynamic fell on deaf ears until Trump began his second term. The latter’s approach to U.S. Europe relations jolted the continent, and the race for autonomy in setting continental foreign policy has come to include European divergence from American foreign policy direction.
Palestine is one of the key elements of this dynamic.
The reluctance of key European states to recognize Palestine stemmed partially from the desire to maintain a united Western position on global affairs. By aligning with the American position on the Middle East, they could more easily secure American support on continental policies, particularly those impacting Eurasia.
With the crack in the transatlantic relation widening, that calculus has shifted. Europe can no longer count on Washington’s unequivocal support. Instead, France has determined that it needs to set its own course on the international arena. The simplest quickest and most impactful way to signal foreign policy autonomy is to recognize the State of Palestine.
In doing so, it opens a political door to the Global South and the broader international community to engage with France -and by extension Europe- as a key global interlocutor. By positioning Europe as a separate entity from the U.S., Macron sets the stage for smoother European relations with Africa, the Middle East, and key parts of Asia.
If European strategic autonomy grows, its foreign policy outlook will also shift. Macron, in taking this step, sets France up to lead the new collective foreign policy of the continent, even has he elevates Paris’s role in bridging the gap between the Global South and the Global North. Of the 193 members of the UN, 147 recognize the state of Palestine. The holdouts are mostly set in Western Europe and the Global North and have been reticent to defy American policy toward the Middle East over the decades.
If France takes this step in September, it will be an important shift in the European foreign policy landscape, possibly catalyzing further changes along the way.
The Domino Effect
Just yesterday France and Saudi Arabia cochaired the conference for the implementation of the Two State Solution. This had originally been slated for June but postponed under pressure from the U.S. and due to the evolving situation on the ground in the Middle East, particularly the Israel-Iran war. Through this, France is mobilizing support for its position and leveraging its potential recognition of Palestine to enhance its engagement with the Global South and key regional actors in the Middle East.
More importantly, recognition by France could spur other states who are on the fence to do the same. Already the UK has stated that it could recognize Palestine in September (If Israel refuses to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza). Were that to happen, 4 out of the 5 members of the Security Council would recognize Palestine, and the pattern of growing recognition across the G7, G20, and NATO would continue to shift.
The cascading effect of this recognition on the international arena is potentially huge. France’s relative weight and influence, its prominent membership in key global alliances means that its voice in recognizing Palestine carries serious political weight.
By leveraging this political card to its advantage, France offers Europe as another port in an increasingly bipolar world, where the two global titans -the U.S. and China- are flexing their political muscle across the international arena.
In my next piece, I will explore how the Conference on the Two State Solution factors into this equation, and we will follow the developments leading up to September and the UN General assembly when France is slated to announce its recognition.