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France's president has joined Spain in condemning US and Israeli strikes on Iran, branding them illegal. In a televised address on Tuesday evening, Emmanuel Macron declared the attacks were 'outside the bounds of international law'. He is the second Western leader to question the legality of the conflict after Spain's Pedro Sanchez warned that strikes from the US and Israel risked bringing about a 'more uncertain and hostile international order'.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that he held talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, and Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam regarding what he described as a "very worrying" situation in Lebanon. Macron stated that he reaffirmed the need for Hezbollah to immediately cease its attacks against Israel and beyond, warning that what he called a strategy of escalation constitutes a major mistake that endangers the entire region. At the same time, Macron said he urged Prime Minister Netanyahu to preserve Lebanon’s territorial integrity and to refrain from launching a ground offensive. He stressed...

Mark Carney has backtracked on his support for the US military campaign against Iran.In an initial statement on Sunday, the Canadian prime minister expressed “support” for the attacks and said they were necessary to “prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon”.But speaking in Sydney on Wednesday, he told reporters that the strikes appeared “to be inconsistent with international law”.Mr Carney joined a chorus of world leaders speaking out against the joint US-Israeli operation, which entered its fifth day on Wednesday.Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said on Tuesday that while Iran bore responsibility for the war, the attacks by the US...

France is to boost its nuclear arsenal and extend the deterrent to cover other European countries, in a major development of its nuclear defence policy. In a speech in Brittany, President Emmanuel Macron explained the changes as the response to an increasingly unstable strategic environment. "The next 50 years will be an era of nuclear weapons," he said. Speaking to naval officers in front of a nuclear submarine at the Ile Longue base near the port of Brest, he said the number of French nuclear warheads would be increased from their current level of around 300. He announced the launch...

France will summon U.S. Ambassador Charles Kusher to protest comments made by the Trump administration over the death of a far-right activist, the foreign affairs minister said on Sunday. Jean-Noel Barrot was reacting to a statement by the U.S. State Department's Counterterrorism Bureau, which stated that "reports, corroborated by the French Minister of the Interior, that Quentin Deranque was killed by left-wing militants, should concern us all." The State Department said in its post on X that "violent radical leftism is on the rise and its role in Quentin Deranque's death demonstrates the threat it poses to public safety. We...

If U.S. President Donald Trump really wants to win the Nobel Peace Prize, he needs to stop the war in Gaza, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday. Speaking to France's BFM TV from New York, Macron said that only Trump has the power to put pressure on Israel to end the war. "There is one person who can do something about it, and that is the U.S. president. And the reason he can do more than us, is because we do not supply weapons that allow the war in Gaza to be waged. We do not supply equipment that...

French President Emmanuel Macron said it was out of line for Charles Kushner, the U.S. ambassador to France and the father of President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, to publicly accuse him of taking insufficient action to combat antisemitism, and for him to link France's foreign policy positions to domestic incidents of violence against Jews in France. In a letter he published in the Wall Street Journal to Macron in August, Kushner wrote that he had "deep concern over the dramatic rise of antisemitism in France and the lack of sufficient action by your government to confront it." "Public statements haranguing...

Recognition of a Palestinian state is "the best way to isolate Hamas", French President Emmanuel Macron said in a TV interview with Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 on Thursday. France is expected to officially recognise Palestine as a state early next week at the UN General Assembly. Daniel Quinn reports.

France will recognise a Palestinian state in September at the UN general assembly, Emmanuel Macron has said. The French president announced the decision on X on Thursday evening, saying he hoped it would bring peace to the region. Macron published a letter sent to Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, confirming France’s intention to become the first major western power to recognise a Palestinian state. “True to its historic commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, I have decided that France will recognise the State of Palestine,” Macron said. “I will make this solemn announcement at the...

France has backed the International Criminal Court’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli officials, in stark contrast to British and American disapproval.