Paris already banned Israeli companies from participating in a military trade fair earlier this year.
The Defense Department said at the time that conditions were not appropriate for companies to participate while the president was calling Emmanuel Macron “Israel to stop operations in Gaza“.
A decision comes France At a time when Israeli forces launched several air strikes and limited ground operations targeting the Hezbollah group in Lebanon.
The Israeli operations led to a large number of civilian deaths, prompting the Western allies, including… Franceto call for an immediate cessation of hostilities.
The Israeli Prime Minister refused Benjamin Netanyahu A ceasefire does not prevent Hezbollah from rearming and reorganizing its ranks.
Tensions between Netanyahu and Macron have increased in the past few weeks after Paris worked with Washington to agree on a 21-day truce between Israel and the Hezbollah group that would open the door to negotiations to reach a long-term diplomatic solution.
Despite the belief that Israel Agreed to the terms, France was surprisedUS When the next day, Israel launched strikes that killed the Secretary-General of the Hezbollah group at the time, Hassan Nasrallah.
Officials say that there are no prospects for a ceasefire in the near term.
Paris turned its attention to trying to establish parameters for a diplomatic solution once the fighting stopped.
But Macron has upset Netanyahu and his government several times in the past few weeks, especially after UN forces fell into the crosshairs of Israel in southern Lebanon.
Macron called on it to stop supplying Israel with offensive weapons used in the Gaza Strip.
A French official said that Macron said in a cabinet meeting yesterday, Tuesday, that Netanyahu must not forget that his country was established by a decision from United Nations.
Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot sought to downplay the comments, saying they were intended to remind Israel of the importance of respecting the UN Charter.
Netanyahu’s office said in response that the State of Israel was founded through “the War of Independence with the blood of our heroic fighters, many of whom were Holocaust survivors, including from the Vichy regime in France,” referring to the French government that cooperated with Nazi Germany.
Two diplomats said that these verbal skirmishes would not facilitate French efforts to mediate in Lebanon.
France will host a conference in the capital, Paris, next week.
Netanyahu wondered about Paris’s intentions, and accused it of inviting South Africa and Algeria, and said that they were working to deprive “Israel of its basic right to self-defense, and in fact reject its right to exist.”
For his part, the Israeli Defense Minister described, on Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to prevent Israeli companies from participating in a naval weapons exhibition as a “disgrace.”
“We will continue to defend our nation against enemies on seven different fronts, and fight for our future, with or without France,” Yoav Galant said on the Communication X website.
