Fight against terrorism should not mean 'razing Gaza to the ground': Emmanuel Macron

By Nur Asena Erturk

French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday that the idea of a fight against terrorism should not be about "razing the Gaza Strip to the ground."

Macron noted that Paris' position was the same since the start of the conflict in the Middle East, despite what critics have said.

"We cannot allow to settle the idea that fighting efficiently against terrorism should be razing Gaza to the ground or attacking civilian populations without distinction and causing civilian casualties," Macron told French broadcaster France 5.

The president, however, did not back away from the idea that Israel has "the right to defend itself" against the Palestinian group, Hamas.

"Israelis must end this response because it is not appropriate, and all lives matter," Macron stressed.

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, killing over 20,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 52,586 others, according to health authorities in the enclave.

The Israeli onslaught has left Gaza in ruins with half of the coastal territory's housing stock damaged or destroyed, and nearly 2 million people displaced within the densely-populated enclave amid shortages of food and clean water.

Nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack, while nearly 130 hostages remain in captivity.

- Macron backs immigration law

The president also backed the much-disputed immigration law adopted by parliament.

French lawmakers passed the bill on immigration late Tuesday that fractured the political majority.

Macron backed the law and denied claims that it was adopted with support from the far-right National Rally (RN) party.

"This law will allow us to be more efficient against what feeds the RN," he said, adding that the French were expecting the law, particularly in the most fragile neighborhoods.

"We must fight against the flows, which means clandestine arrival of people that we cannot resend," Macron explained.

One out of four lawmakers in Macron's camp did not vote for the bill, according to the daily Le Figaro.

Left-wing lawmakers criticized the government for having the support of the RN to adopt the law.

MP Raquel Garrido wrote on X earlier: "If the National Rally voted against, the bill would not be adopted. Factual. Arithmetic."

Lawmaker Mathilde Panot told the broadcaster, Franceinfo, that the government "used National Rally's votes and National Rally's ideas to adopt the worst law ever seen" in France's migration history.

Far-right leader and Macron’s rival, Marine Le Pen, hailed the bill, calling it "a great ideological victory for our movement."

Health Minister Aurelien Rousseau resigned and several ministers threatened to resign if the bill was adopted Tuesday, while government spokesperson Olivier Veran denied any "ministerial revolt" over the law on Wednesday.

The Constitutional Council will now verify the text's validity, and the law will take effect once it is published in the Official Gazette.

People took to the streets late Wednesday in the northwestern city of Rennes during Macron’s interview, according to media reports.

Hundreds protested against the immigration law, said local broadcaster TVR.

Humanitarian group Medecins du Monde, or Doctors of the World, urged Macron to not promulgate the law.

"A true machine to stigmatize, exclude, and destabilize," the NGO wrote on X about what it described as "far-right measures."

Hard-left politician Jean-Luc Melenchon noted that some of the articles in the law were taken from the RN's and Marine Le Pen's presidential program.

- Immigration law

The first version of the bill was de facto rejected by lawmakers when the Green groups' motion to dismiss was adopted even before the first parliamentary debate Dec. 11.

But the government formed a joint committee of seven senators and seven MPs who found a consensus between the majority and the opposition, with a reviewed version of the text.

After the Senate’s passage of the revised text, MPs mostly voted in favor of the new version which was hardened even more.

Article 3 in the initial version aimed to give a one-year residency permit under certain conditions to irregular foreign workers who operate in "sectors under tension" -- sectors that suffer labor shortages. But the new version gives city prefects the power to accept or reject a foreigner's request to regularize.

The crime of irregular residency was reinstated after its cancelation in 2012. Those who commit it will be fined €3,750 ($4,100) and prohibited from entering France for three years.

The law requires five years of legal residency, instead of six months, to be eligible for social aid.

It also removes the automatic right of the soil for children born to foreign parents in France.