🇫🇷France Summons U.S. Ambassador Charles Kushner Over Antisemitism and Palestine Recognition Dispute
Analysis: Charles Kushner’s attack on Emmanuel Macron over antisemitism and his recognition of Palestine has sparked a rare diplomatic clash between Paris and Washington.
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A Diplomatic Rift Over Antisemitism Puts France and America at Odds
France and the United States have found themselves locked in a bitter dispute after Charles Kushner, the American ambassador in Paris, accused Emmanuel Macron’s government of failing to protect France’s Jewish community. The French foreign ministry responded with outrage, summoning Kushner on Monday to issue a formal rebuke and declaring his allegations “unacceptable”.
The letter at the heart of the row was sent on 25 August, a date Kushner described as “the 81st anniversary of the Allied Liberation of Paris, which ended the deportation of Jews from French soil” under Nazi occupation. In it, the ambassador claimed France was not doing enough to confront a surge of antisemitism since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.
Allegations and Rebuttals
“In France, not a day passes without Jews assaulted in the street, synagogues or schools defaced, or Jewish-owned businesses vandalised,” he wrote. While acknowledging that antisemitism had “long scarred French life,” he insisted that hatred of Jews “has exploded since Hamas’s barbaric assault”.
Kushner pressed Macron “to act decisively: enforce hate-crime laws without exception, ensure the safety of Jewish schools, synagogues and businesses ... and abandon steps that give legitimacy to Hamas and its allies.” His letter went further still, denouncing France’s stated intention to recognise Palestinian statehood at the UN General Assembly in September.
“Public statements haranguing Israel and gestures toward recognition of a Palestinian state embolden extremists, fuel violence and endanger Jewish life in France,” he warned, before concluding that “in today’s world, anti-Zionism is antisemitism — plain and simple.”
The French government has rejected those charges outright. “France firmly rejects these allegations,” the foreign ministry said on Sunday, arguing that French authorities had been “fully mobilised” to address the rise in antisemitic acts, which it deemed “intolerable”.
French officials added that Kushner’s remarks violated diplomatic convention by interfering in France’s internal affairs and “fall short of the quality of the transatlantic partnership between France and the United States and of the trust that must prevail between allies.”
The clash comes at a particularly sensitive moment for France, as Macron has already faced fierce criticism from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who accused him earlier this month of fomenting antisemitism by pledging to recognise a Palestinian state.
The French president’s office dismissed Netanyahu’s accusation as “abject” and “erroneous,” insisting that support for Palestinian statehood was compatible with a firm stand against antisemitism.
Yet Kushner’s intervention, echoing Netanyahu’s line almost word for word, risks reinforcing the impression of an American Israeli front against Paris.
And while clearly politically motivated, Kushner’s broader argument touches on uncomfortable domestic realities.
France is home to the largest Jewish population in Europe, roughly 500,000 people, or about 1% of the national total, as well as a large Muslim community deeply attuned to the conflict in Gaza. Both groups have reported a surge in hate crimes since Israel launched its retaliatory offensive nearly two years ago, with the renewed Israel-Palestine conflict providing an excuse for antisemitic and racist behaviour towards both communities.
In his letter, the ambassador cited surveys showing that many French citizens believe another Holocaust could occur in Europe, while “nearly half of French youth report never having heard of the Holocaust at all.” He asked pointedly: “What are children being taught in French schools if such ignorance persists?”
The White House has yet to comment publicly, but State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott backed Kushner on Sunday, describing him as “our U.S. government representative in France” who is “doing a great job advancing our national interests in that role.”
That response has only underlined Washington’s willingness to stand behind an envoy whose own record in American politics has been controversial. A real estate developer and father of Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Charles Kushner was pardoned by Trump at the end of his first presidential term after pleading guilty years earlier to tax evasion and making illegal campaign donations.
Palestinian Recognition and Global Fallout
For Macron, this response will have been expected. His announcement of French recognition of Palestine, due to be formalised next month in New York, was always going to provoke diplomatic friction with both Israel and Washington.
France, however, joins at least 145 UN member states that already recognise or plan to recognise Palestinian statehood, and Macron’s announcement was the catalyst for a wave of new pledges of recognition.
Paris has argued that such a step is necessary for any lasting peace, framing it as part of a two-state solution and the best way of removing one major tool Hamas uses to acquire new recruits.
Critics like Netanyahu and Kushner, however, portray it as a dangerous signal that rewards Hamas and fuels extremism, all while Netanyahu and his political colleagues move to ‘conquer’ Gaza according to The Times of Israel.
Which raises some fairly simple-to-answer questions about why Netanyahu is so against a recognition of Palestine.
The broader Franco-American relationship has also been strained on other fronts this year, with Donald Trump’s trade wars, France opposing Washington’s plan to scale back the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, and the sheer differences over Ukraine have frequently left Paris and Washington at cross purposes.
Not only this, but Donald Trump’s recent push to win a Nobel Peace Prize by ‘solving’ Ukraine, and rowing back the majority of the promises he’s made, has strained any signs of a thaw between Trump and the Europeans. This is being compounded by the Kushner affair, which highlights how fragile that rapprochement remains.
The Geopolitical Ramifications
The geopolitical implications reach beyond the bilateral spat. Paris has always sought to position itself as a bridge between Europe, the Arab world and Washington on questions of the Middle East, while also seeking to maintain credibility as a guarantor of Jewish security at home.
By framing French recognition of Palestine as a direct threat to Jewish life, Kushner risks undermining that balancing act and narrowing the space for European diplomacy. For America, meanwhile, the ambassador’s intervention may complicate its ability to marshal European support on issues such as Ukraine or Iran if allies see Washington as unwilling to respect their sovereignty on Middle Eastern policy.
The quarrel also sits within a longer tradition of Franco-American discord over the Middle East.
Charles de Gaulle’s dramatic break with Israel after the 1967 Six-Day War marked a decisive turn in French foreign policy, one that Washington often viewed as unhelpful if not obstructive. In the lead-up to the war, France placed an embargo on the delivery of offensive weapons to the Middle East, and in a meeting with Minister Abba Eban, warned them not to fire the first shot.
This was clearly ignored by the Israelis, who saw the tactical value of launching a surprise, pre-emptive attack on the Egyptian air force to gain air supremacy, rather than taking a reactive posture against its Arab neighbours.
In the early 2000s, Jacques Chirac clashed with George W. Bush over the invasion of Iraq, with Paris once again invoking the need for multilateral solutions and warning of probable destabilisation in the region.
Macron’s stance on Palestinian recognition follows that same lineage: an insistence on French independence in global affairs and the need for diplomatic solutions to ongoing conflicts, even at the cost of angering close allies. Kushner’s letter may therefore be remembered less as an isolated controversy than as the latest flare-up in a recurring pattern of divergence between Paris and Washington when it comes to the Middle East.
Diplomatic summonses are relatively rare between allies of such long standing, and this one will be read across Europe as a sign of how quickly tensions can escalate when questions of antisemitism, Israel, and Palestine collide with domestic politics.
For France, the accusations cut deep, striking at a national memory still marked by Vichy collaboration and the deportation of Jews. This will also be viewed as a direct attack on French sovereignty, independence, and the construction of European power and European Strategic Autonomy.
For America, exporting its definition of Jewish security abroad reflects a conviction that America must set the terms of the debate, even at the expense of diplomatic convention.
Between those positions lies an old but widening fault line: whether allies can disagree on the Middle East without weakening the trust that underpins their partnership.
The affair is unlikely to end with Monday’s meeting at the Quai d’Orsay, with Macron determined to press ahead with Palestinian recognition and Kushner unrepentant, the rift may linger, leaving one of the world’s closest alliances wrestling with an unusually bitter and personal quarrel.
Yet beyond the immediate quarrel, the episode once again raises deeper questions about the nature of the Franco-American alliance, and what kind of alliance it should be.
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I’m staggered that yet another convicted felon is elevated, this time as US Ambassador to France. I sincerely hope Macron dismisses him and dispatches him straight to Tel Aviv 🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷
Thank you for this statement. It's embarrassing to say the least that another real estate development is dabbling in diplomacy having been appointed by the real estate developer that thinks he's king of the world. Kushner and Trump are truly inexcusable.