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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.

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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POLITICS

Macron warns of ‘civil war’ if far right or hard left win election

President Emmanuel Macron warned that the policies of his far-right and hard-left opponents could lead to ‘civil war’, as France prepared for its most divisive election in decades.

Macron warns of ‘civil war’ if far right or hard left win election

French politics were plunged into turmoil when Macron called snap legislative elections after his centrist party was trounced by the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) in a European vote earlier this month.

Weekend polls suggested the RN would win 35-36 percent in the first round on Sunday, ahead of a left-wing alliance on 27-29.5 percent and Macron’s centrists in third on 19.5-22 percent.

A second round of voting will follow on July 7th in constituencies where no candidate takes more than 50 percent in the first round.

Speaking on the podcast Generation Do It Yourself, Macron, 46, denounced both the RN as well as the hard-left France Unbowed party.

He said the far-right “divides and pushes towards civil war”, while the hard-left La France Insoumise, which is part of the Nouveau Front Populaire alliance, proposes “a form of communitarianism”, adding that “civil war follows on from that, too”.

Reacting to Macron’s comments, far-right leader Jordan Bardella told French news outlet M6: “A President of the Republic should not say that. I want to re-establish security for all French people.”

Bardella, the RN’s 28-year-old president, earlier Monday said his party was ready to govern as he pledged to curb immigration and tackle cost-of-living issues.

“In three words: we are ready,” Bardella told a news conference as he unveiled the RN’s programme.

READ ALSO What would a far-right prime minister mean for foreigners in France?

Bardella has urged voters to give the eurosceptic party an outright majority to allow it to implement its anti-immigration, law-and-order programme.

“Seven long years of Macronism has weakened the country,” he said, vowing to boost purchasing power, “restore order” and change the law to make it easier to deport foreigners convicted of crimes.

He reiterated plans to tighten borders and make it harder for children born in France to foreign parents to gain citizenship.

Bardella added that the RN would focus on “realistic” measures to curb inflation, primarily by cutting energy taxes.

He also promised a disciplinary ‘big bang’ in schools, including a ban on mobile phones and trialling the introduction of school uniforms, a proposal previously put forward by Macron.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal of Macron’s Renaissance party poured scorn on the RN’s economic programme, telling Europe 1 radio the country was “headed straight for disaster” in the event of an RN victory.

On Tuesday, Attal will go head-to-head with Bardella and the leftist Manuel Bompard in a TV debate.

On foreign policy, Bardella said the RN opposed sending French troops and long-range missiles to Ukraine – as mooted by Macron – but would continue to provide logistical and material support.

He added that his party, which had close ties to Russia before its invasion of Ukraine, would be “extremely vigilant” in the face of Moscow’s attempts to interfere in French affairs.

Macron insisted that France would continue to support Ukraine over the long term as he met with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg.

“We will continue to mobilise to respond to Ukraine’s immediate needs,” he said alongside Stoltenberg at the Elysee Palace.

The election is shaping up as a showdown between the RN and the leftist Nouveau Front Populaire, which is dominated by the hard-left La France Insoumise.

Bardella claimed the RN, which mainstream parties have in the past united to block, was now the “patriotic and republican” choice faced with what he alleged was the anti-Semitism of Mélenchon’s party.

La France Insoumise, which opposes Israel’s war in Gaza and refused to label the October 7th Hamas attacks as ‘terrorism’, denies the charges of anti-Semitism.

In calling an election in just three weeks Macron hoped to trip up his opponents and catch them unprepared.

But analysts have warned the move could backfire if the deeply unpopular president is forced to share power with a prime minister from an opposing party.

RN powerhouse Marine Le Pen, who is bidding to succeed Macron as president, has called on him to step aside if he loses control of parliament.

Macron has insisted he will not resign before the end of his second term in 2027 but has vowed to heed voters’ concerns.

Speaking on Monday, Macron once again defended his choice to call snap elections.

“It’s very hard. I’m aware of it, and a lot of people are angry with me,” he said on the podcast. “But I did it because there is nothing greater and fairer in a democracy than trust in the people.”

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