Paris’s decision to recognize Palestine as an independent, sovereign state is a step in the right direction, but a lot more needs to be done. France follows Slovenia, Spain, and Ireland as EU member states recognizing Palestine, which brings the total tally of European countries to 11. This announcement, made by President Emmanuel Macron on the 9^th of April, 2025, signals the Renaissance government’s intentions to make the move at a UN conference in June, which has already raised eyebrows in "Israel".

Yet there is more to dealing with the Palestinian issue than simply recognizing Palestinian statehood, which the French state must acknowledge. It’s about ending the genocide, imposing sanctions on "Israel", suspending trading ties with the apartheid regime, stopping the funding of settlements, preventing arms sales to the Netanyahu government, and pressurizing "Israel" to comply with the prerequisites of establishing a sovereign Palestinian state.

France in particular, needs to be cognizant of these realities given its history as a colonial power, its subjugation of resistance movements, and its controversial legacy in Africa and beyond.

French Moral Responsibility Anchored in History

French history in continents such as Africa is filled with controversy. It involves glaring exploitation and state-sponsored repression of liberation movements. No more is this evident than in the North African country of Algeria, where close to 500,000 French colonial officers employed heinous tactics against indigenous Algerians, including summary executions and torture to subjugate the National Liberation Front, a legitimate resistance movement seeking to overthrow French colonialism. The Algerian war, which lasted for eight years from 1954 to 1962, resulted in an astonishing 1.5 million deaths, of which the majority of them were Algerians. The war continues to define Algeria’s national conscience despite decades of independence from French rule.

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Cameroon, too, was not exonerated from French brutality or exploitation. Like Algerians, Cameroonians sought to replace French colonialism through resistance in the form of the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC), enduring deportations, massacres, and assassinations by French forces. The West African country also witnessed French exploitation of its local societal fabrics by initiating a brutal counterinsurgency, which resulted in thousands of deaths. Like Algeria, these heinous crimes against humanity in Cameroon have left an indelible impact on its history.

France, as a colonial power, has also practiced slavery in its various colonies. Capitalizing on the slave trade proved critical for its domestic economic growth and was fueled by the extraction of raw materials and widespread agricultural activity generated from slave labor. The French West India Company, for example, had a monopoly over Senegal and was involved in tobacco production through its numerous plantations, which were taken care of by trafficked people of African and Caribbean heritage. Approximately 13,000 African slaves were trafficked into the French West Indies each year since 1778, which continues to cause unease in African countries today, where many of them have pressed France to pay reparations for its previous ills of colonialism, exploitation, and repression.

While France has apologized and vowed to pay reparations, many of its modern-day activities are exaggerating the plight of populations in some of the poorest countries in the world. Niger, for example has one of the largest uranium deposits in the world, yet the French company, Orano has been embroiled in controversy for extracting its resources, contributing to environmental pollution and promoting negative externalities for the indigenous people. Orano’s extractions has also had little to no effect on the local population or the economic growth of Niger which again, constitutes an example of neocolonialism in full flow.

French Support for Palestine Must be Backed Up With Action

France’s historical legacy clearly necessitates adequate reparations and actions that cater to states that are suffering from neocolonialism. This includes the Palestinian territories, which have been occupied for decades and continue to be bombarded by "Israel’s" state-sponsored genocidal machinery. France has been witness to this mayhem, and choosing to remain a silent bystander will not help the Palestinian cause.

Instead, Macron’s government needs to suspend all arms sales to the genocidal regime in all forms. This includes a total of two million Euros worth of electronic components and communication systems for Israeli drones, which Paris gave between 2018 to 2023. France also needs to boost transparency and accountability of its arms sales to "Israel", as it has otherwise remained opaque and shrouded in secrecy. It has been revealed in the French Defense Ministry’s own report of 2024 that "Israel’s" actual deliveries and authorized licenses from France amounted to $31 million worth of military equipment, which is twice the amount from 2022.

Beyond this is France granting immunity to Netanyahu after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants against him. Many French companies also continue to support the genocidal settlement enterprise despite condemnation from Paris in 2024 on the construction of 3,500 units in the occupied West Bank.

These realities clearly warrant course correction from France, which is more than recognizing Palestinian statehood. A sustained campaign of boycotts, tolerance for Palestinian voices domestically and playing an active role as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council by passing binding resolutions calling for an end to the Israeli settlement enterprise, imposition of economic and diplomatic sanctions on "Israel" for violating international law and referring cases to the International Criminal Court, remains the key towards complimenting its recognition of statehood with concrete steps.

Failure to do so, however, would mean little too late from France. Hence, the best course of action for Paris is to follow up its recognition of Palestinian statehood with concrete and tangible actions against "Israel".