France Foreign Minister urges ‘immediate humanitarian truce’ in Gaza war

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna called Sunday for an "immediate" humanitarian pause in the Israel-Hamas war as casualties mount in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Published: 5 November 2023 12:22 CET

France Foreign Minister urges 'immediate humanitarian truce' in Gaza war

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna speaks during a joint press conference in Doha on November 5, 2023. Photo: KARIM JAAFAR/AFP.

“An immediate, durable and observed humanitarian truce is absolutely necessary and must be able to lead to a ceasefire,” Colonna told reporters during a visit to Qatar.

“A consensus has been found on this point among the international community,” she said, adding that France was working to have a resolution on a truce to put before the UN Security Council.

Her comments, which came after talks with her Qatari counterpart, follow similar calls for a humanitarian pause by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is on his latest tour of the region since the October 7 attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Such pauses were a key focus of Blinken’s talks in Israel on Friday, but the proposal drew short shrift from hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu said he would not agree to a “temporary truce” with Hamas until the Islamist group releases more than 240 Israeli and foreign hostages it abducted on October 7.

Since the shock Hamas attack, which Israeli officials say killed 1,400, mostly civilians, Israel has relentlessly bombarded the Gaza Strip to destroy Hamas, levelling entire city blocks.

The health ministry in Gaza, the narrow territory under Hamas control since 2007, says more than 9,480 people, mostly women and children, have been killed
in Israeli strikes and the intensifying ground campaign.

France, which will host a humanitarian conference on Gaza on Thursday, demanded an Israeli explanation on Friday after a strike on the French Institute cultural centre in Gaza.

Agence France-Presse has also demanded an inquiry after its Gaza bureau was significantly damaged by a separate strike.

“The fight against terrorism must be carried out in conformity with international humanitarian law,” Colonna said.

“It’s an international obligation to protect civilians. Too many of them are dying in strikes on Gaza. Schools, hospitals, humanitarian workers, journalists must in particular be safeguarded.”

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The far-right Rassemblement National (RN) is currently far ahead in opinion polls for the June 9th elections in France, with Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Renaissance party in a battle for second place with the Socialists.

The debate between Attal, 35, and Bardella, 28, who leads the RN’s list in the EU elections, will be the first head-to-head clash between the two leading figures in a new French political generation.

Polls have been making increasingly uncomfortable reading for Macron, who has had to fly to the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia to try to calm the violent unrest there.

Coming third would be a disaster for the president, who portrays himself as a champion of European democracy and bulwark against the far right.

The head of Macron’s party list for the elections, the little known Valérie Heyer, has failed to make an impact and was widely seen as losing a debate with Bardella earlier this month.

According to a Toluna-Harris Interactive study for French media, the presidential camp is stuck at just 15 percent of the vote and in a dogfight for second place with the Socialists – who are on 14.5 percent – led by former commentator Raphael Glucksmann.

The RN, by contrast, is soaring ahead on 31.5 percent.

The RN’s figurehead Marine Le Pen, who has waged three unsuccessful presidential campaigns, has sought to bring the RN into the political mainstream as she eyes another tilt at the presidency in 2027.

“There is a very clear signal that must be sent to Emmanuel Macron. He must suffer the worst possible defeat to bring him back to earth,” Le Pen told CNews and Europe 1 this week.

Bardella, who took over the party leadership from his mentor, is key to Le Pen’s strategy, a gifted communicator of immigrant origin with an expanding following on TikTok.

Attal, also one of the best debaters in Macron’s government, is expected to seek to portray Bardella as an extremist, complacent over the threat posed by Russia and who has little interest in Europe.

Apparently aware of the danger, Bardella on Tuesday said the RN will no longer sit in the EU parliament with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) faction, indicating it had lost patience with the controversies surrounding its German allies.

The head of the AfD’s list in the polls, Maximilian Krah, had said in a weekend interview that someone who had been a member of the SS in Nazi Germany was “not automatically a criminal”.

Bardella is “putting his credibility and the future of his movement on the line in the debate”, said the Le Monde daily, adding that a strong performance could see some RN supporters regard him as a stronger candidate in 2027 than Le Pen.

You can find a more detailed profile of Attal HERE and a look at Bardella HERE