The Israel-Hamas War Exposes Divisions in France

PARIS – Hoisting an oversized French flag above her head, Sandrine, a 53-year-old Parisian business owner, shuffled along amid the 105,000 participants in Paris in a Nov. 12 march against antisemitism. It had been three weeks after the apartment door of a friend’s parents was burned down in the 19th arrondissement, or district, of Paris, in what officials suspect was a brutal act of antisemitism. Sandrine’s mother, brother and cousins all live in Israel.

Flanked by her two adult children, who each had taped postcard-sized red posters to their backs with a name and photo of one of the roughly 240 people taken hostage by Hamas in the terror group’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, she expressed concern that French society has become more polarized since those attacks touched off an ongoing war.

“Many people have taken sides,” says Sandrine, who didn’t feel comfortable providing her last name given the sensitivity of the topic. “You have to choose your side. Either you choose the side of the terrorists, or you choose the side of democracy.”

Tensions have been simmering in France since Hamas launched its brutal assault on Israel, killing roughly 1,200 people, among them 30 French citizens. More than 1,500 antisemitic acts were reported in the country between the Oct. 7 attacks and Nov. 14, according to the government – more than three times as many as in all of 2022. Muslim leaders have also complained of rising hate speech aimed at their communities, and in addition to demonstrations in support of Israel, the country has seen large pro-Palestinian marches calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.

Divergent reactions to the massive march on Nov. 12 alongside conflicting opinions over the war have underscored growing political extremes in an already divided nation, home to the third-largest Jewish population in the world and the largest Muslim immigrant population in Western Europe as of 2016.

The ongoing domestic tensions have posed challenges for French President Emmanuel Macron and his Renaissance party, who risk navigating the conflict in a way that further inflames the public and works to the advantage of rival parties.

Nearly 80% of French people say they’re concerned that the conflict in the Middle East will increase tensions in France, according to an October poll by a French consulting firm.

Macron and his centrist Renaissance party have been walking a fine line in this polarized climate, both supporting the right for Israel to exist and defend itself while strongly condemning civilian deaths in Gaza, with a long-term goal of a two-state solution.

This position “is quite traditional in France” and a common goal of past French presidents, says Marc Lazar, an associate expert at the Montaigne Institute and a professor at Sciences Po.

Immediately following the Oct. 7 attacks, Macron condemned Hamas and supported Israel’s right to defend itself. On Oct. 12, his government controversially banned all pro-Palestinian protests due to the potential for violence and antisemitic incidents (in the past, protesters have burned cars and pelted police officers with stones, and chanted antisemitic slogans).

On Oct. 18, France’s highest administrative court blocked the government’s blanket ban and said that pro-Palestinian protests could be permitted by local authorities on a case-by-case basis.

“The explicit prohibition of Palestinian demonstrations is something very recent and, in my opinion, a massive political mistake,” Lazar says.

Israel’s response to the attacks, including its call to evacuate 1 million people from northern Gaza and ensuing bombing and ground campaigns, which have reportedly led to nearly 15,000 Palestinian deaths, quickly led Macron to shift his tone and speak more about the dangers posed to Palestinian civilians.

During an Oct. 24 visit to Israel, Macron called for an international coalition to fight Hamas while pushing the Israeli government to respect humanitarian law. “A Palestinian life is worth a French life, which is worth an Israeli life,” said Macron, who also met with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank.

Most of France strongly supported Israel until the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, when Israel soundly defeated Egypt, Jordan and Syria in six days and began occupying the Palestinian territories, according to Marc Hecker, a researcher at the Center for Security Studies at the French Institute of International Relations who specializes in radical Islamism and the repercussions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in France.

“That’s when French policy really starts to evolve [and] public opinion shifts … and becomes more favorable to the Palestinians” than in the past, says Hecker. “Whereas Israel had been David against Goliath, there was a reversal, with Israel being perceived as a stronger actor than the allied Arab countries.”

According to an early November poll by the French Institute of Public Opinion, an international polling and market research firm, the French as a whole still lean toward Israel but voice notable support for Palestinians. In the current conflict, 25% said they sympathize with Israel, 14% said they had sympathy for the Palestinian Authority, which has partial control of the West Bank, and 2% expressed sympathy for Hamas. Meanwhile, roughly two-thirds feel neither sympathy nor antipathy for either side. Nearly 6 in 10 support Israel’s goal of eliminating Hamas from Gaza.

As the death toll in Gaza continued to rise, Macron hosted a humanitarian conference on Gaza on Nov. 9 and called for a cease-fire – a more indefinite pause of hostilities as opposed to the “humanitarian pauses” that have been supported by U.S. President Joe Biden and other Western leaders. He also leveled what Foreign Policy called “the harshest criticism seen from any G-7 leader toward Israel since the beginning of the conflict.”

Macron can’t run for office in the next presidential election, due to term limits. But he is likely also aware that his handling of the conflict ultimately could impact his party’s political future at a time when the far right and far left are steadily gaining traction among voters in France.

The crisis in the Middle East comes at a time when the French government is particularly polarized. The country has 11 official political parties, but the National Rally (RN), on the far right, and La France Insoumise (LFI), on the far left, hold the second- and third-largest numbers of seats in the National Assembly.

The far-right RN is a populist, nationalist party formerly known as the National Front (FN) which has evolved over time to become pro-Israel. Founded in 1972, the group has defined itself through its opposition to immigration and globalization. For 40 years, the FN was led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, who has been criminally convicted multiple times in connection with homophobic, xenophobic and antisemitic statements.

In 2011, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s daughter, Marine Le Pen, took over as president of the FN with a goal of “de-demonizing” the party. Marine ousted her father from the FN in 2015 and changed the party’s name to “Rassemblement National,” or National Rally, in 2018. Le Pen’s popularity has grown, with recent polling suggesting she leads the 2027 presidential race.

RN leaders including Le Pen have consistently supported Israel throughout the current conflict and attended the Nov. 12 march against antisemitism, a controversial move which some considered a political play to gain supporters.

“They are showing that they are becoming mainstream,” says Hecker. 

The RN, which denounces mass immigration to France from largely Muslim countries, also views Israel as a beacon of democracy in the Arab world.

“For [Marine Le Pen], Israel is now the victim of an attack by an Islamist terrorist movement. And she says, ‘The Islamist terrorist has already struck in France,’” says Jean-Yves Camus, a research associate at the Institute of International Relations and Strategic Studies (IRIS), and a member of the task force on antisemitism at the European Jewish Congress.

On the other side of the political spectrum is the LFI, a far-left populist party founded in 2016 by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, heir of a tradition of far-left politicians who view the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist cause.

Mélenchon knows that a large portion of French Muslims – who make up about 10% of the total French population, or approximately 6 million to 7 million people – vote for him, Lazar says. “He needs to consolidate this electorate,” he adds.

While the majority of French Muslims remain moderate in their views, small pockets of extremists support Hamas and have called for the destruction of Israel.

To this end, Mélenchon has refused to condemn Hamas. He courted controversy when he declared that he would not attend the Nov. 12 march against antisemitism, writing on social media that attendees were in “unconditional support for the massacre” in Gaza. His party also said the march had ambiguous objectives.

Although the LFI is officially in favor of a two-state solution, Mélenchon has remained ambiguous on this point.

“He needs to defend what [Hamas does] without saying he supports them directly” as part of the Palestinian cause, says Lazar.

As the LFI and RN dig their heels into their opposing viewpoints, Macron’s challenge is to make two diametrically opposed perspectives feel they’re both heard.

“It’s about finding a balanced position to prevent this conflict from having repercussions in France,” Lazar says.