Israeli arms firm Rafael threatens to sue France over Paris Air Show shutdown
Rafael and other Israeli arms companies were blocked from exhibiting at the Paris Air Show for refusing to remove attack weapons from display. The firms say the move is discriminatory and are preparing legal action.
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00:00Tensions flared at the Paris air show on Tuesday as Israeli defense firm Raphael announced plans to sue the French government.
00:10Four Israeli weapons makers were blocked from exhibiting after French authorities said they were displaying offensive weapons linked to Israel's war in Gaza.
00:19We had rented this booth about a year ago. We sent the blueprints of the booth to the French authorities a few months ago, and when we cleared customs with all our equipment, that was about a month ago.
00:36And they decided to cordon our booth without any written notice the night before the show.
00:44We are going to sue the French government for the grounds of causing financial damage, for not giving us access to the property that we had rented.
00:55Usually when you have your property and somebody prevents access from you, you have rights to sue them.
01:01And we will sue the French government because we think this is an unjust act.
01:06Israeli defense firm Elbit Systems also voiced anger, calling the move discriminatory.
01:12I was totally disappointed. We invested a lot of money in the exhibitions.
01:19We don't understand the logic of the decision because from our perspective it's discrimination because everybody around is showing the same systems.
01:33But French Prime Minister François Bayrou defended the move.
01:36Given the diplomatic choices of France, including the concern or in any case the very big concern about Gaza, we could not show that there was a certain distance that we thought it would not be acceptable that offensive weapons are in a salon like that.
02:04This is not the first time Israeli arms makers have faced pushback in France.
02:09They were barred from attending a land defense expo in 2024 and allowed into another naval defense show last fall, only after a Paris court ruling overturned the decision to bar them.
