Interview Quotes

Recognition of Palestinian Statehood and the Path to Peace

"I think it was a necessity first to decide this recognition, and I will announce it on the 22nd of September at the United Nations, precisely because we are at a very moment where, if we want peace and security for all in the region, we have to preserve the condition of a political perspective for everybody."

— Speaker 03 • 00:28:40

"So we will announce a recognition, but which is the beginning of a political process and a peace and security plan for everybody."

— Speaker 03 • 00:35:14

"But recognizing a Palestinian state today is the only way to provide a political solution to a situation which has to stop."

— Speaker 03 • 01:16:18

"If we conditionate this move to, I would say, the agreement of those who just don't want to stop this war, it's an endless process."

— Speaker 03 • 01:49:15

"Because the objective of Hamas is absolutely not to create a Palestinian state. The objective of Hamas is to destroy Israel, to convince the maximum number of people that they have no chance to have peace and stability and precisely a Palestinian state, and to kill the maximum number of Israeli people."

— Speaker 03 • 02:19:41

"So my first point is to say I don't answer the Hamas with that. I don't meet the expectations of Hamas. Hamas is just obsessed by destroying Israel."

— Speaker 03 • 02:43:47

"But I recognize the legitimacy of so many Palestinian people who want a state, who are a people, they want a nation, they want a state, and we should not push them towards Hamas."

— Speaker 03 • 02:53:01

"If we don't offer them a political perspective and such a recognition, the unique answer will be security and they will be completely trapped by Hamas as the unique option."

— Speaker 03 • 03:04:05

"Because it's just killing the credibility of Israel. And by the way, weakening and killing our own credibility if we don't make a move as the one we are organizing."

— Speaker 03 • 04:34:01

"Exactly. But this is the whole perspective."

— Speaker 03 • 04:44:01

"If we want precisely to build a sustainable peace for Israel itself and for Israeli people, a political process and the recognition of a Palestinian state, if this state recognizes the right of Israel to live and defend itself, is demilitarized, has security forces with a vetting process by Israel with obviously a proper governance and reform governance."

— Speaker 03 • 07:21:48

"So we have to recognize that the Palestinian Authority has to be reformed. The governance is not satisfactory today. We need a new..."

— Speaker 03 • 08:37:49

"But let's just remark and please notice with me that thanks to the recognition process we launched, for the first time for many years. We got the 9th of June a series of clear commitments from the Palestinian Authority."

— Speaker 03 • 08:57:19

"So the recognition is the way as well to re-engage and bring them back to the table. And my point is to say, let's isolate Hamas and let's focus on the dismantling of Hamas from a military and a political point of view."

— Speaker 03 • 09:48:31

"When the Knesset decided to start the settlements again in West Bank, it was the best evidence of the fact that they don't want to fight against Hamas. There is no Hamas in West Bank. They just want to destroy the existing political bodies and the possibility of the two states."

— Speaker 03 • 10:15:21

"My point is precisely to provide another perspective. We are closely coordinated with the U.S. administration when we speak about the ceasefire and the release of stages."

— Speaker 03 • 11:21:03

"What we want is a de facto governance in Gaza with clearly a sort of transitional administration, including the Palestinian Authority, excluding clearly Hamas, but with a vetting process of Israel and an association of all the neighbors."

— Speaker 03 • 11:55:31

"And in this security package, obviously, the core element is a dismantling of Hamas. There is no other option if you want to fix the situation to disarm the Hamas and precisely to demobilize so many fighters to organize what we call a DDR process, which is very familiar to all the experts in this type of situation."

— Speaker 03 • 13:14:11

"No, we don't qualify as a genocide what's happening because it is not a political statement. This is the judges and or the historians to qualify a genocide by a series of evidence and a clear jurisprudence and clear elements."

— Speaker 03 • 15:25:48

"What's happening is clearly a lot of civilians are being killed de facto on the ground and the project is to displace people. So I think this is a big mistake and this is where I try to convince your administration that if we agree on the day after and we want this de facto authority, this security package, the dismantling of Hamas and the reconstruction, let's work on the current day."

— Speaker 03 • 15:44:07

"So we should not be, for the credibility of the United States, for the credibility of France, we cannot be implicitly or explicitly complacent with such a project because such a project we know it and by the way all the security experts even in Israel are very clear on the fact it will be a humanitarian disaster."

— Speaker 03 • 16:29:00

Combating Anti-Semitism and Diplomacy

"Not at all. I think this is a mistake and an acceptable statement for somebody who is supposed to be a diplomat."

— Speaker 03 • 17:15:24

"Now the matter is much more important and the matter about anti-Semitism is for me one of my top priorities."

— Speaker 03 • 17:41:19

"My point is to say you cannot reject the existence of Israel. Anti-Sionism is unacceptable and is anti-Semitism but it doesn't mean that you are not allowed to be in disagreement with the government of Israel otherwise we will become crazy."

— Speaker 03 • 18:33:17

"I'm sorry but I want to fight very hard against anti-Semitism I'm deadly against any anti-Sionist speech but I do endorse to be in disagreement with Prime Minister Netanyahu and some of his ministers on many topics."

— Speaker 03 • 18:47:32

"This is true. But my point is let's focus on some secondary sanctions if they make sense. I think what we what we have to do is to engage a serious dialogue in order to see where and in which capacity Russia is helped by third countries and to increase the pressure so I think this approach is a good one but it should be targeted and directly related to Russia."

— Speaker 03 • 23:49:46

The Role of Europe and NATO in Global Security

"Very clearly Russia is a destabilizing and aggressive power in Europe."

— Speaker 03 • 19:46:41

"There is no mistake there is just a project which is to destroy the maximum territories of Ukraine to have a victory in Ukraine and just to highlight what they want the weakness of NATO."

— Speaker 03 • 20:13:03

"My point is to say it's largely beyond that. My point is to say look at what they did during the past few weeks so I sincerely believe that your president was committed and is committed to make peace in Ukraine and he engaged he took the risk to make a summit with President Putin in Anchorage and he asked for negotiations and I think he's right but at the same time I have to just to recognize that there is no clear willingness of President Putin to be sincerely engaged in such a move."

— Speaker 03 • 20:52:19

"So now what do we do? We have to increase sanctions against Russia but we have to find a way to precisely put more pressure on Russia to bring them back at the table."

— Speaker 03 • 21:43:48

"This is true and we are fixing it and we had discussion with Ursula von der Leyen and she made a great work with her team to fix that but let's be honest this is very marginal this is not a key driver today we decreased by more than 80% the consumption of oil and gas and I can tell you because we were not the most impacted as a country because we were less dependent on this oil oil and gas coming from Russia but we have to finalize to finish the job this is true but now it's clearly much more than what we have to do what we have to do we have to step up our support to Ukraine and we have to provide a way to better resist to the new attacks on Kiev and civilians."

— Speaker 03 • 22:30:19

"Because the Trump administration has pointed to the idea that there are billions of dollars sitting in European bank accounts that could be seized for example or that you know here you could put more tariffs on China or sanctions on China are these valid arguments by the administration or is it a diversion?"

— Speaker 00 • 23:08:38

"Regarding the frozen assets we are all very much attached to to be compliant with international rules and you cannot say these assets from the central bank even in such a situation and I think it's a matter of credibility and it's very important that our countries remain the garant and do respect the international laws because this is our problem everywhere if we speak about Middle East if we speak about the situation in Ukraine when some countries start to disrespect international laws and when we are not sufficiently strong this is the beginning of a total chaos so we will respect international law we are predictable and we will not do all impossible things with these frozen assets we already took them as not as a collateral but we took this frozen asset and all the proceeds coming from this frozen asset were used to finance our effort part of our effort to Ukraine this is the first point."

— Speaker 03 • 23:21:15

"Look I think we will have our own diplomacy on China and we are very much attached to our independence which is normal and we have a de-risking strategy but we are not in a decoupling strategy."

— Speaker 03 • 24:06:48

"No I'm not concerned or worried about that I want to say that the NATO Secretary General worked very hard and we all gathered and exchanged information with the Polish Prime Minister and the Polish President in the hours right after this what happened and for instance UK and France stepped up and we sent fighters but it's fine we were in a situation to do so and we are totally credible but at the same time look at what the US is doing on the eastern flank of NATO you are a very strong contributor and reliable partner so I don't want to diminish this role and your commitment and I think your President was very clear about his commitment to NATO."

— Speaker 03 • 25:02:23

"But I'm totally in line with the fact that the Europeans have to step up. I've defended for years the fact that we need more independence more strategic autonomy in Europe and we need a stronger European pillar."

— Speaker 03 • 25:38:33