Emmanuel Macron’s decision to ban Israeli firms from a Paris trade show amidst Israel’s struggle for survival against both Hamas and Hezbollah is more than just an exercise in diplomatic duplicity. It is a betrayal of the highest order — a vile surrender to the same kind of moral cowardice that once stained the honour of France under the Vichy regime.
Cloaked in the nauseating language of ‘balance’ and ‘neutrality’, Macron’s actions recall the days when French leaders sacrificed their Jewish citizens for the supposed security of collaboration with fascist oppressors. Today, Macron is not collaborating with Nazis, but the principles of appeasement remain the same — and just as poisonous.
In excluding Israeli businesses, Macron has done more than signal disapproval; he has chosen to single out the very nation fighting for its survival after the barbarism of October 7. This is no mere diplomatic posture. It is an alignment with the growing tide of anti-Zionist fervour coursing through Europe, a sentiment which conveniently allows certain politicians to hide their thinly disguised hostility towards the Jewish state under the cover of political expediency.
Just like in the 1940s, Macron is appeasing the forces of extremism in the name of peace, just as the Vichy government justified its collusion with Hitler’s regime under the pretext of national interest.
But this betrayal of Israel does not exist in a vacuum. It is part of a broader, more disturbing pattern in Macron’s foreign policy. While the president attempts to present himself as a champion of stability and dialogue, Macron’s failed attempt to secure a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel is a damning indictment of his agenda.
Let us be clear: Hezbollah is not a misunderstood faction with legitimate political ambitions. It is a terrorist organisation, armed and funded by Tehran, that wages war on Israel with fanatical dedication. Yet Macron, in his desperation to cling to some semblance of French authority in the region, has opted to opted to pursue a ceasefire rather than support the destruction of Hezbollah.
This is not diplomacy — it is collaboration, based on the excuse of simply wanting peace that French leaders once used when they handed over Jews to the Nazis. Macron’s pretence of moral high ground, his carefully orchestrated appearances of neutrality, are nothing more than a fig leaf for his underlying anti-Zionism. He is unwilling to see terrorists for what they are so long as it enables him to maintain his European chic while washing his hands of the Jewish state.
This policy of appeasement and withholding support for Israel as it faces existential threats — echoes a dark chapter of French history. After the Second World War, France enjoyed a peculiar kind of redemption. The narrative of its liberation by Allied forces, of its resistance to Nazi occupation, allowed it to escape the full reckoning that Germany had to endure. While Germany was forced to confront its complicity in the Holocaust, France never fully confronted its own collaboration with the Nazis during the Vichy era.
The result was a nation that emerged from the war with its self-image intact, never truly looking within to exorcise its demons. Those unexamined demons have resurfaced under Macron. His administration, while paying lip service to human rights and Western values, has allowed old prejudices to find new expression. France’s failure to reckon with its history of collaboration has bred a kind of moral blindness in its modern leadership, enabling the same twisted logic to re-emerge. Today, it is not the swastika but the anti-Zionist chic that reigns in Parisian salons, where attacks on Israel are dressed up as concern for the Palestinian cause.
Macron, like many European elites, hides behind the façade of humanitarianism. In reality, Macron’s false morality is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to placate the forces of radicalism while maintaining his influence in the Middle East.
By failing to treat Hezbollah as the terrorists they are, by banning Israeli firms from trade shows, and by refusing to offer unequivocal support to a nation under siege, Macron is repeating the mistakes of the past. His foreign policy is not about peace; it is about power, about ensuring that France maintains some relevance in a region where its influence is increasingly overshadowed by the likes of Iran and Turkey.
Just as the Vichy regime collaborated with Hitler under the illusion that it was safeguarding France, Macron fails to properly oppose Israel’s enemies under the pretence of stability. But this is a false stability. Macron’s decisions will not bring peace to Lebanon, nor will they stabilise the Middle East. Instead, they embolden those who seek Israel’s destruction and provide cover for the kind of radicalism that thrives on the West’s moral indecision.
Like Pétain’s infamous collaboration with the Nazis, Macron’s actions are not just cowardly — they are complicit in the violence that will follow. Macron had a choice. He could have stood resolutely with Israel, a fellow democracy fighting for its survival against the most heinous form of barbarism. But he chose a different path.
Like the leaders of Vichy, Macron has opted for the path of least resistance, preferring to appease radicals and pander to European anti-Zionist sentiment rather than standing up for what is right. France’s post-war victory allowed it to avoid a true reckoning with its collaborationist past.
France’s failure to confront its own history has consequences, consequences that are now dressed in the respectable clothing of modern diplomacy. Macron may believe that he is maintaining France’s influence in the region, but in truth, he is merely repeating the moral failures of the past. And history will judge him accordingly.
A bon entendeur …
Catherine Perez-Shakdam is the Executive Director of We Believe In Israel
