(Tundra Tabloids) Manfred Gerstenfeld interviews Freddy Eytan - "Bilateral French-Israeli relations have significantly improved and are currently the best they have been since Israel's honeymoon with the French socialists in the 1950s. Both countries now have more interests in common. The wave of Muslim terror in Europe requires collaboration and exchange of information between their intelligence services. Military relationships have improved, together with economic interactions. Nowadays several major French companies are represented in Israel including the EDF energy group and the Alsthom transport company." "At the same time however, France maintains its 'automatic' favorable attitude toward the Palestinians....In line with this automatic stance, under [President] Hollande's leadership France supported a scandalous motion ignoring the Jewish connection with the Temple Mount in Jerusalem." "The French parliament, with its Socialist majority, voted in favor of the recognition of a Palestinian state....Hollande had to take into account here the power of the pro-Palestinian left wing in his Socialist party, as well as the Green party. As Hollande is the least popular post-war French president to date, he will need all the support he can get if he wants to have a chance in the 2017 presidential elections." Former Israeli ambassador Freddy Eytan is an expert on France's Middle East policy.
2016-05-20 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive