PARIS — French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said that shipments of military equipment bound for Israel from French ports would not be used by the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza following a protest by dock workers.
“It is important to remain reasonable,” Barrot said in an interview with radio station RTL on Friday when asked about the strike. “We don’t deliver military materiel used in Gaza.”
Barrot reiterated the French government’s official position regarding the sale of military equipment to Israel, which is limited to components in the Iron Dome missile defense systems or authorized shipments intended for weapons to be assembled in Israel and then exported to other countries — which, according to Barrot, was the case in this instance.
The local branch of the CGT — one of France’s biggest trade unions — representing port workers in the Gulf of Fos, near the city of Marseille, said Wednesday that it had refused to load a container of equipment from the French company Eurolinks destined for the Israeli city of Haifa.
Eurolinks, a Marseille-based company that manufactures metal ammunition links — components used to connect cartridges in machine gun belts — did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.
The local strike — which received support from the CGT’s national leadership — highlights the growing pressure on the French and other European governments to convince Israel to either scale back or end its bombing campaign and monthslong blockade of the Palestinian enclave, which has severely restricted civilians’ access to food, water and medicine. NGOs are also seeking to block Israeli defense companies from attending the Paris Air Show — one of the world’s largest aerospace fairs — later this month.
French President Emmanuel Macron is reportedly lobbying several European countries to recognize the state of Palestine at a United Nations conference later this month.
Laura Kayali contributed to this report.
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