French President Emmanuel Macron has assured Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israeli defense firms will be able to participate in the June 16-22 Paris Air Show, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement following a call between the two leaders on Sunday.
According to the PMO readout, Netanyahu and Macron also discussed other issues, “including developments in Lebanon and Gaza.”
Last year, the French government introduced extreme restrictions on Israeli entities taking part in arms fairs in the country, banning all firms whose products were used in the wars in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.
Virtually all Israeli arms manufacturers sell their products to the security forces, which have been conducting the fighting for more than 15 months.
In October, a Paris court reversed the decision to ban Israeli firms from the next month’s Euronaval Defense Exposition, citing principles of equality.
Jerusalem and Paris have repeatedly clashed since Macron called for a partial arms embargo on the Jewish state’s military in early October.
“I have a message for President Macron. Today, Israel is defending itself on seven fronts against the enemies of civilization,” Netanyahu said in an Oct. 5 statement published by his office. “All civilized countries should be standing firmly by Israel’s side. Yet President Macron and some other Western leaders are now calling for an arms embargo against Israel. Shame on them,” he said, adding, “What a disgrace.”
Later that month, the Israeli prime minister rebuffed Macron after he claimed that the Jewish state was created by a United Nations vote.
“A reminder to the French president: It was not a U.N. decision that established the State of Israel but the victory that was achieved in the War of Independence with the blood of our heroic fighters, many of whom were Holocaust survivors, including from the Vichy regime in France,” said the premier.
“It would also be worthwhile to recall that in recent decades, the U.N. has approved hundreds of antisemitic decisions against the State of Israel, the purpose of which is to deny the one and only Jewish state’s right to exist and its ability to defend itself,” Netanyahu added.