An investigation by Association France Palestine Solidarité and allied NGOs revealed that several major French banks, insurers, and infrastructure firms maintain direct financial links to the Israeli settlement enterprise. This financial backing persists despite UN Security Council Resolution 2334 declaring settlement activity illegal under international law, and President Macron’s recognising a Palestinian state—a clear hypocrisy when billions in French capital and military cooperation continue to entrench occupation.
BNP Paribas leads in this situation where they have given Israeli companies and settlement projects close to $15 billion is loans and hold $5.2 billion Israeli bonds.
Macron’s Promises and Contradiction
Emmanuel Macron has complained about him being under pressure since he took office from Benjamin Netanyahu and his banker friends in Paris. However, he comes from the same banking industry and owes his rise in politics to the Israeli lobby and pro-Israel French financial institutions.
In February 2024, President Emmanuel Macron publicly reaffirmed France’s intent to recognise a sovereign Palestinian state—an announcement hailed by human rights groups. Yet during the same period, these five above institutions have collectively committed over €17 billion in loans, underwriting, and investments that facilitate illegal settlements. This dissonance between high-level statements and financial flows exposes a stark hypocrisy: pledging Palestinian statehood while underwriting the barriers that make it impossible.
Military and Nuclear Support
France’s support for the Zionist entity is nothing new. Some of the first settlers even before the tragedy of Nazi Holocaust were armed French Zionists to the land of Palestine.
In 1953, France served as Israel’s principal arms supplier, delivering Mirage combat aircraft, tanks, artillery, and small arms that underpin the regime’s capacity to secure and expand settlements.
French engineers from the Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique assisted in constructing Israel’s first nuclear reactor at Dimona, providing enriched uranium and technical expertise for plutonium production—critical to Israel’s strategic deterrent.
Although President de Gaulle imposed an arms embargo days before the Six-Day War in 1967, France’s strategic ties resumed in later decades under successive administrations. It was only on 5 October 2024 that President Macron halted all new French arms exports to Israel, a belated gesture that fails to address decades of military cooperation which bolstered the security apparatus protecting settlement expansion.
One has to wonder why there has never been an anti-Zionist president in France since de Gaulle.
French Government’s Role and Repeated Missed Enforcement
France’s 2017 due diligence law obliges large companies to identify and mitigate human rights risks within their operations and supply chains. Yet enforcement has been lax: the Ministry of Economy has not imposed sanctions or divestment on banks financing occupation, and state-linked entities like Caisse des Dépôts continue indirect ties to settlement-linked projects through corporate shareholdings. No punitive measures have been taken under Macron’s administration, despite repeated NGO calls for accountability. Macron has been complicit in the erasure of Palestine and the Gaza genocide right from the beginning of his presidency, and now he pretends in front of the world that he stands for a Palestinian state.
Accountability if Macron Was Serious
Two-state solution has already been deemed unrealistic. However, if any of these nations, especially France is serious, sanctions on almost every aspect of Israel must be enacted immediately. All trade blockade, all travel blockade. French citizens should be banned from going into any territory that Israel has occupied since 1948.
Invoke the due diligence law to force BNP Paribas, Société Générale, Crédit Agricole, BPCE, and AXA to divest fully from all settlement-linked assets.
Launch a government audit of Caisse des Dépôts and other public-sector investments to identify and cease any indirect exposure to occupation-supporting companies.
Formal recognition signed in the French Parliament with embassies in both Palestine and France.
Call-back to all those French settlers and companies that at least the Macron administration has facilitated.
Declare French Israeli soldiers who have taken part in 2018 and 2023 Gaza war and genocide as war criminals and hold trials.
Finally but most importantly a total arms and intelligence embargo on Israeli military and intelligence agencies and software companies like NSO-Group.
There will never be a Palestinian state if these Architects of Israeli Apartheid entity do not pay the reparations to Palestinians. The best reparation is to stop their actions that does not just help this apartheid to be reality, but promotes it. Holding these largest institutions in France would be the first step the Macron government will take if that declaration in UN meant anything at all. Until then let’s keep protesting and putting pressure.
Democracies should not be funding a genocide and should not be the architects of apartheid.
If you like our work you can always choose to become a paid member and support our citizen journalists.
Kindly share this article.
