Why Is France Recognizing Palestine Now?

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00:00France is the most powerful European country to announce plans to recognise a Palestinian state.

00:06What's driving the move? Why is this happening now?

00:08Yeah, that's right. Earlier in the year, Emmanuel Macron hinted that that might be something he'd be minded to do,

00:13recognise Palestinian statehoods, and that was set to take place at a conference jointly hosted by Saudi Arabia and France earlier in the year.

00:22The conference got postponed, and so did the idea of recognising Palestinian statehood.

00:27Until now, Emmanuel Macron has decided that it is time, there is no alternative, he said.

00:32We have to pursue peace, we have to recognise a Palestinian state, and he'll do so at the United Nations General Assembly.

00:39That's the forum where he will make that solemn announcement, in his words, in September.

00:44It's a long-standing policy of the French presidency to maintain that they support a two-state solution,

00:50so a state of Israel and a state of Palestine, coexisting side by side.

00:55And now we are seeing Emmanuel Macron taking that next step, that symbolic move to recognise Palestinian statehood.