Free Republic

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...

French officials have expressed their dismay after a French scientist was denied entry into the United States because immigration officers found text messages containing a "personal opinion" about the Trump administration and its policies on scientific research. In a statement issued on Wednesday and sent to the AFP news agency, France's Minister of Higher Education and Research Philippe Baptiste said he had “learned with concern” that a space researcher working for the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) was stopped for a random check at an unspecified US airport and expelled due to critical text messages about US President...

On Sunday, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, arrived in Iran for talks on the nuclear agreement, as part of what appears to be an attempt by the UN nuclear watchdog to evaluate whether Iran ran a military nuclear program in the past. Amano is expected to meet with various Iranian nuclear scientists for answers on this very subject. On December 15, ahead of the lifting of crippling economic sanctions on Tehran, he is slated to present the world with definitive answers that will determine whether Iran complied with the terms of a nuclear deal signed...