France could recognize Palestinian state 'in June': Macron

ISTANBUL

France could recognize the state of Palestine "in June" during an international conference co-chaired with Saudi Arabia, French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday.

"We must move towards recognition, and we will do so in the coming months," Macron said in an interview broadcast on France 5.

He said the planned conference on implementation the two-state solution for Israeli-Palestinian conflict, expected to take place in New York, could mark a turning point.

"Our goal is to chair this conference (on Palestine) with Saudi Arabia sometime in June, where we could finalize this movement of mutual recognition by several parties," he said.

His remarks come amid growing international calls for a political resolution to the conflict in Gaza, where Israel has killed more than 50,000 people since October 2023, and the wider Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

In February 2024, Macron said recognizing a Palestinian state is "not a taboo for France," underlining that such a move is a moral and political necessity.

"We owe it to the Palestinians, whose aspirations have been trampled on for too long. We owe it to the Israelis who experienced the greatest anti-Semitic massacre of our century. We owe it to a region that yearns to escape the promoters of chaos and the sowers of revenge," he said at the time.

Currently, 147 of the 193 UN member states recognize the state of Palestine. Last May, Spain, Ireland, and Norway joined the list, bringing the total number of EU countries granting recognition to 10. Others are Bulgaria, Cyprus, Malta, Hungary, Poland, Sweden, and Romania.

Several other European countries, particularly in Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, Albania, Serbia, Montenegro, and Belarus, have also recognized Palestinian statehood.