France–Israel relations

French–Israeli relations

France	Israel

France–Israel relations refers to the bilateral foreign relations between France and Israel. France has an embassy in Tel Aviv and a consulate-general in Jerusalem. Israel has an embassy in Paris and a consulate-general in Marseille.

After the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948 and in the early 1950s, France and Israel maintained close political and military ties. France was Israel's main weapons supplier until its withdrawal from Algeria in 1962. After the Six-Day War in June 1967, Charles de Gaulle's government imposed an arms embargo on the region, mostly affecting Israel.

Under François Mitterrand in the early 1980s, French–Israeli relations improved greatly. Mitterrand was the first French president to visit Israel while in office. After Jacques Chirac was elected president in 1995, relations declined due to his support of Yasser Arafat during the first stages of the Second Intifada. After the election of Nicolas Sarkozy in May 2007, France's new leader said that he would refuse to greet any world leader who does not recognize Israel's right to exist.

The Dreyfus affair between 1894 and 1906 was the first and rather bitter connection between the Zionist Movement and France. The ousting of a French officer of Jewish-German descent in a modern European state motivated Theodor Herzl in organizing the First Zionist Congress and pledging for a home for the Jewish in 1897. During the fourth Zionist Congress in London in 1900, Herzl said in his speech there that "...there is no necessity for justifying the holding the Congress in London. England is one of the last remaining places on earth where there is freedom from Jewish hatred." While the British Government began to recognize the importance and validity of the Zionist movement, the French staid abstent. The first closer connection between the Zionist Movement and France was during World War II between the years 1940–1944 when France was under German occupation.

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