Over 50 town halls in France were flying the Palestinian flag Monday in defiance of an interior ministry warning not to do so ahead of the recognition of a Palestinian state by President Emmanuel Macron.
As France prepares to recognise Palestine at the UN, town halls across the country are caught up in a row over whether or not to raise the Palestinian flag in solidarity.
Macron is due to recognise a Palestinian state on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, following up on a pledge he made in the summer that angered Israel.
Many mayors are sticking to their plan to hoist the flag in spite of stern warnings from the France's Interior Ministry and early rulings from administrative courts.
Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who is also leader of the right-wing Republicans Party, last week instructed police prefects to enforce the principle of political neutrality in public services.
"The principle of neutrality in public service prohibits such displays," the Interior Ministry said, adding that any decisions by mayors to fly the Palestinian flag should be referred to courts.
In Malakoff, just south of Paris, Communist mayor Jacqueline Belhomme has said the flag will stay put “until Tuesday” – despite an order from the local administrative court to take it down after a complaint from the Hauts-de-Seine department's police prefecture.
Double standard
The police prefect has already gone back to court, this time seeking a financial penalty. An administrative court on Monday announced this would be a sum of €150 per day.
"I symbolically placed a flag on the town hall facade in solidarity with the Palestinian people, whose state will finally be recognised on Monday at the UN by the President of the Republic," Belhomme told RFI.
"This is absolutely not a provocation. The law does not forbid it."
Belhomme underlined that when Malakoff had put a Ukrainian flag on its town hall after the Russian invasion, "there was no controversy at the time".
"I think there's a double standard," she said.
France's Interior Ministry clamps down on public display of Palestinian flags
'Symbolic choice'
The black, white, red and green banner is also expected to fly over other town halls in the Paris suburbs, including Nanterre, Bagneux, Gennevilliers, Ivry-sur-Seine and Corbeil-Essonnes.
For Mathieu Hanotin, Socialist mayor of the suburb of Saint-Denis, north of Paris, the gesture is deliberately time-limited rather than a permanent statement: “It’s not an act of long-term militancy,” he told French news agency AFP, but a symbolic choice timed to coincide with President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement at the UN General Assembly confirming France’s recognition of the State of Palestine.
Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure attended a flag-raising ceremony in Saint-Denis, saying he opposed Retailleau's order and said he had written to Macron asking the president to rescind it.
"This flag is not the flag of Hamas, it is the flag of women and men who also have the right to freedom and self-determination," Faure said.
Karim Bouamrane, mayor of nearby Saint-Ouen is following the same line, with Bouamrane even planning to raise both Palestinian and Israeli flags.
The mayors of Lyon, Lille, Rennes and Nantes are also taking part.
France spearheads UN drive to recognise Palestinian statehood
Directive from Interior Ministry
Elsewhere, however, some are retreating under pressure. In Mauléon-Licharre, a small town of 3,000 in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, the Communist mayor who had raised the Palestinian flag on Friday removed it the following day after a court challenge by the local prefect.
That line was echoed in the Cergy-Pontoise court’s decision and underlined by Interior Ministry secretary general Hugues Moutouh: “The state not only does not ask for flag displays, it explicitly asks for non-displays.”
Centrists, conservatives and the far right are backing the ministry’s stance.
But the issue is splitting the left. In the Créteil suburb of Paris, Socialist mayor Laurent Cathala has refused to raise the flag, arguing that his priority must be to preserve social cohesion in his community.
Other mayors are finding creative workarounds. In Brest, the city hall – which has flown the Ukrainian flag since 2022 – will instead light up its façade in the colours of Palestine.
In Marseille, mayor Benoît Payan promised a "strong gesture", saying he wanted to go further than to raise a flag.
On Monday afternoon, he announced a sister-city link between Marseille and Bethlehem, in the West Bank, a project he launched some months ago.
The flags of both Israel and Palestine, as well as peace images of a dove and olive branch, were displayed late Sunday at the Eiffel Tower, which was illuminated in celebration of the recognition of the Palestinian state.
"Paris reaffirms its commitment to peace, which more than ever requires a two-state solution," Socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo wrote on Bluesky.
Acknowledging the impassioned responses caused by his decision, which have included anger from within France's Jewish community, Macron posted a video on X on Sunday saying France wanted "peace, an immediate ceasefire and the release, without delay" of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
(With AFP)
