Hamas Says France Plan To Recognise Palestinian State 'Important Step'

Hamas said Thursday that the announcement by President Emmanuel Macron that France could recognise a Palestinian state by June was an "important step", after Israel's foreign minister slammed the plan.

"We welcome the statements made by French President Emmanuel Macron regarding his country's readiness to recognise the State of Palestine," Hamas official Mahmud Mardawi told AFP.

He said the announcement was "an important step that, if implemented, would constitute a positive shift in the international position towards the legitimate national rights of our Palestinian people".

On Wednesday, Macron said France plans to recognise a Palestinian state within months and could make the move at a UN conference in New York in June.

"We must move towards recognition, and we will do so in the coming months," Macron, who this week visited Egypt, told France 5 television.

Mardawi said France's move was important because it is a veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security Council.

"France, as a country with political weight and a permanent member of the (UN) Security Council, has the ability to influence the course of fair solutions and push towards ending the occupation and achieving the aspirations of the Palestinian people," Mardawi said.

He said those aspirations were "freedom, independence and the establishment of their state on their land, with Jerusalem as its capital."

Palestinian minister of state for foreign affairs Varsen Aghabekian Shahin, who is based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, told AFP France's recognition of Palestinian statehood "would be a step in the right direction in line with safeguarding the rights of the Palestinian people and the two-state solution".

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar denounced Macron's announcement as a "prize for terror and a boost for Hamas".

"These kind of actions will not bring peace, security and stability in our region closer -- but the opposite: they only push them further away," he said on X late on Wednesday.

Nearly 150 countries recognise a Palestinian state. In May 2024, Ireland, Norway and Spain announced recognition, followed by Slovenia in June, moves partly fuelled by anger at the high civilian death count in Israel's devastating offensive in Gaza triggered by Hamas's October 2023 attack.

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