Macron lectures Israel while France burns

I love Paris. I love visiting it. I love the grandeur of its boulevards, the elegance of its architecture, and the extraordinary feeling that history and beauty accompany you around almost every corner. Few cities have contributed more to humanity’s understanding of civilization.

That is why watching its streets descend into scenes of smashed windows, burning barricades, and looted businesses is heartbreaking. When you love a city, you cannot shrug at its degradation. You feel anger at the people destroying it and at the leaders whose responsibility is to protect it.

Emmanuel Macron has spent years telling Israel what responsible leadership requires. At the United Nations and before the world’s cameras, France’s president has delivered prescriptions, condemnations, and diplomatic initiatives with remarkable confidence.

After the latest violence across France, a question demands an answer: Where is that confidence when his own country needs governing?

On October 17, demonstrations over living costs and deteriorating public services brought hundreds of thousands of people into French streets. They did not protest peacefully. Violent groups exploited the mobilization to attack buildings, loot businesses, and confront police.

In Limoges, the historic city hall burned. In Marseille, intruders broke into city hall and defaced it. In Lyon, the tourist office was set ablaze. This was a crisis stretching far beyond the capital.

By Sunday, the Interior Ministry reported nearly 2,400 arrests and almost 1,000 injured police officers. Further clashes and looting followed in Paris. Behind those figures were frightened residents, injured people, exhausted officers, and business owners confronting wrecked livelihoods.

The world has heard Macron’s lectures. France may not survive to see the end of his speech.

Macron condemned the destruction and distinguished peaceful demonstrators from those responsible for violence. That distinction is essential. People demanding better schools, adequate teachers, and affordable lives deserve to be heard. Their grievances do not become illegitimate because criminals exploit a demonstration.

But condemnation after the damage cannot be the full measure of presidential leadership. Citizens are entitled to ask what was anticipated, what was protected, and why obvious targets were left vulnerable.

My frustration is sharpened by Macron’s relentless confidence in judging Israel. And let’s face it. Some of the most violent protesters throughout France are Jihadis waiving Palestinian flags. It seems they hate France as much, or even more, than they hate Israel. Wow! That’s incalculable hate!

And yet, here is a leader who repeatedly presents himself as capable of prescribing security arrangements for a democracy across the Mediterranean facing threats considerably more severe than his own.

Yet his domestic record should inspire greater humility.

In October 2024, Macron called for an end to arms exports used in Gaza and Lebanon. He presented the proposal as a means of stopping the conflicts. Israelis had every reason to ask how restricting military supplies would affect their ability to confront armed enemies.

Then, in May 2025, France joined Britain and Canada in a statement opposing expanded Israeli operations in Gaza and threatening further action if Israel did not change course. The statement also condemned October 7 and demanded the release of hostages. Those words matter. But so does the political pressure directed at Israel.

In September 2025, Macron announced France’s recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations. He argued that recognition would advance peace and undermine Hamas.

I regard that judgment as dangerously optimistic at best and downright stupid at worst. Diplomatic recognition cannot itself establish accountable institutions, disarm terrorists, or guarantee that territory will never again become a launching ground for attacks.

A Palestinian state of course would be an existential threat to Israel. But truth be told it would be an even greater danger to itself, as a failed state ruled by lawless terrorists who murder Palestinian women and shoot protesters indiscriminately, as in Iran.

Macron’s defenders will say that these policies reflect concern for Palestinian civilians and commitment to two states. Palestinian suffering demands compassion. A durable political settlement deserves serious pursuit. But Israeli security deserves more than reassuring language appended to policies Israelis know will endanger them.

France’s president is entitled to disagree with Israel’s government. He is not entitled to assume that his distance from the battlefield confers superior wisdom about its dangers. To me, his approach too often reflects a severe anti-Israel bias: excessive faith in pressuring the Jewish state and insufficient respect for the security judgments of people who must live with the consequences. A ceremony can announce a state. It cannot supply the conditions that make one peaceful.

I am not arguing that Macron’s speeches about Israel caused French riots. That would be absurd (although it is very fair to say that in taking his eyes off his own country and devoting so much of his time to criticizing Israel, he allowed the domestic storm to come with zero preparation because he was utterly distracted).

I am arguing that a president who invests so much authority in instructing others must accept scrutiny of his own performance. His international ambitions do not reduce his obligations to the people who elected him.

Nor can last weekend be dismissed as an unforeseeable interruption to an otherwise settled country. France has endured repeated upheavals during Macron’s presidency. The causes differ, but the recurring destruction demands a serious accounting.

The French Senate’s examination of the 2023 riots described extraordinary damage to vehicles, public buildings, schools, and businesses. Its findings placed insured losses at €793 million across approximately 16,400 claims.

I do not expect a French president to abolish protest. Protest is part of democracy. I expect him to preserve the conditions in which protest can occur without residents fearing arson, shopkeepers boarding their windows, and public buildings becoming targets.

The distinction between lawful dissent and criminal destruction must guide every response. It should protect peaceful demonstrators as firmly as it protects the businesses along their route.

There is no social program written in the ashes of a burned town hall. No child receives a better education because a school is vandalized. No struggling family benefits when its neighborhood supermarket is looted.

At the same time, restoring order requires more than arrests. A government must understand why people believe their schools are deteriorating, their services are failing, and their working lives no longer provide basic security. And they must allow and finally overcome the woke refusal to condemn the jihadism that has engulfed their nation because of fear of being accused of Islamophobia.

Listening to those complaints is part of governing. So is ensuring that a violent minority — especially the Islamists — cannot hijack them. The public should not be forced to choose between a government that hears its grievances and one that protects its streets. A functioning democracy must do both. A shopkeeper in Paris should not have to compete with the president’s diplomatic legacy for attention.

Macron has promised support for damaged businesses and answers about the authorities’ response. Those commitments should be judged by what follows. Are businesses helped promptly? Are violent offenders identified and prosecuted through lawful procedures? Are mayors given the resources they need? Are failures in intelligence and deployment corrected before another demonstration?

These questions are less glamorous than a speech at the United Nations or pretending to wield the same influence as President Trump in Middle Eastern affairs. They are also closer to the daily meaning of public service.

France’s standing abroad ultimately depends on the credibility of its institutions at home. A president asking the world to trust his judgment should demonstrate that his own citizens can trust the state he leads.

France is a great country. Its people deserve leadership equal to its inheritance. They deserve safe neighborhoods, functioning schools, protected public spaces, and the freedom to disagree without seeing their cities damaged. And they deserve a government that praises Islam while absolutely condemning Islamism — fully, permanently, and unconditionally.

They also deserve a president whose attention remains fixed on those obligations when the international spotlight moves elsewhere.

As a rabbi, I believe moral leadership begins with responsibility. Concern for distant suffering is a virtue. But Macron was never really concerned with Palestinian suffering under Hamas tyranny in Gaza or Israeli women raped by Hamas terrorists. Rather, he was interested in emerging as the Europe’s foremost leader, which today translates as who can condemn Israel the loudest. The suffering immediately before you has far more of a claim upon your conscience than a Jewish state seeking to survive. The head of state of a country whose police — and not the Nazis — personally put 80,000 Jews on trains to be gassed at Auschwitz should perhaps speak with slightly more humility before condemning the Jews for ensuring it never happens again.

The French merchant sweeping broken glass from his doorway deserves urgency. So does the family afraid to leave home, the officer injured protecting a public building, and the student asking for a classroom that works.

And for Israelis watching France’s turmoil, there is reason to insist on a little humility from Paris. Israel’s leaders face scrutiny, as every democratic government should. But their critics should recognize how difficult protecting a society becomes even without the combination of threats Israel confronts.

I want Paris to flourish. I want to return with joy, to walk its streets and celebrate the beauty that has drawn generations of visitors. More than that, I want its residents to enjoy their city without repeatedly paying the price of political breakdown. My anger comes from affection. A city this magnificent should never become resigned to scenes of wreckage and disorder.

Mr. Macron, bring to governing France the urgency you bring to judging Israel. Protect your citizens. Hear their grievances. Defend their institutions. Help them rebuild.

You have told the world what responsible leadership requires.

While Israel thrives, Paris is burning. Perhaps this one time, save France and hold off on condemning the Jews.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach of Englewood is the author of 30 books, including “Holocaust Holiday: One Family’s Descent into Genocide Memory Hell.” Follow him on Instagram and Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

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