Emmanuel Macron is Clueless on the Palestinians
by Bassam Tawil • September 25, 2025 at 5:00 am
"[Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas] has asserted his commitment to fighting hate speech and has promised a thorough overhaul of Palestinian governance." — French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking at the United Nations, September 22, 2025.
Abbas, unfortunately, has been promising sweeping government and security reforms ever since he assumed power in 2005. Palestinians have yet to see even the slightest change in anything.
[Abbas] had two entire decades to reform the PA, but did not seize the opportunity to end rampant corruption or make any changes in the PA that might be constructive for his people. Even the garbage disposal is toxic.
The results of these polls show that a majority of Palestinians do not share the French president's optimism regarding the implementation of government, security and economic reforms.
While Macron seems to have taken at face value Abbas's commitment to launch a "thorough overhaul" of the PA, most Palestinians, according to the polls, have not.
Macron is overly optimistic, if not pathetically naïve, regarding the prospects of democracy in a future Palestinian state.
Macron and other Western leaders, if they believe that the PA will change for the better, at least in the foreseeable future, are living in a fantasy world.... Even if a Palestinian state is created, it will be ruled either by Abbas's corrupt Fatah faction or Hamas.
In contrast to idealists and politicians such as Macron, the UK's Keir Starmer, Canada's Mark Carney and Australia's Anthony Albanese, who are evidently terrified of their Muslim voters, the Palestinians at least are realistic. They are only too aware that their leaders will keep on providing them with nothing but anguish and misery.
French President Emmanuel Macron, in his speech before the United Nations during the "High-level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution" on September 22, justified his decision to recognize a Palestinian state by arguing that Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas had promised "a thorough overhaul of Palestinian governance."
Macron expressed hope that the new Palestinian state would protect "democratic expression":
