Sebastien Delogu, deputy for La France Insoumise (LFI) party, attends an anti-Israel protest in central Paris, France, May 29, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Abdul Saboor

The new Socialist mayor of Paris, Emmanuel Grégoire, has awarded honorary citizenship to Palestinian civilians and journalists, a move that has drawn sharp criticism from local Jewish leaders and renewed scrutiny of the French far-left’s stance on Israel.

Voted on by Paris’s City Council, local officials on Thursday granted honorary citizenship to Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as journalists — a measure long advocated by the far-left La France Insoumise (LFI) party.

“Honorary citizenship is not a symbol, but a commitment to peace. We are extending a hand to an entire people,” Grégoire said in a speech alongside the Palestinian ambassador to France, Hala Abou-Hassira.

“Recognizing the suffering of the Palestinian people does not erase that of the Israeli people,” the French official continued.

Since its establishment in 2001, honorary citizenship in Paris has been used as a recurring expression of solidarity, granted on various occasions to a range of figures and causes, including Hamas hostages in 2024, the people of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023, and the city of Kyiv in 2022.

The Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) — the main representative body of French Jews — condemned this latest diplomatic initiative, saying it represents a clear shift away from what it described as the Paris mayor’s office’s longstanding balanced approach to the Middle East conflict.

“Empathy for victims must be universal. So why not include, for example, the Israeli populations of the kibbutzim attacked on October 7th? Don’t these civilians also deserve this symbolic recognition?” CRIF’s statement read, referring to the Israelis who were massacred by Palestinian terrorists invading from Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023.

“The Mayor of Paris claims to be serving the cause of peace. Yet this decision, driven by political calculations for which the Paris Council is well known, undermines Paris’s ability to serve as a bridge between Israelis and Palestinians,” it continued.

CRIF also warned that the decision effectively hands a political win to the far-left LFI, “which will use it to further hystericalize the public debate and cultivate a dangerous climate of criminalizing Zionism and stigmatizing Jews, who are supposedly guilty by proxy.”

The city of Paris breaks with its longstanding position of balance.

By granting honorary citizenship exclusively to Palestinian civilians, Paris has departed from its historic position of balance regarding the Middle East conflict.

Empathy for victims should be universal. Why,… https://t.co/M57UwmqxkG

— European Jewish Congress (@eurojewcong) June 19, 2026

The far-left LFI has repeatedly faced controversy over its positions on Israel, with critics accusing the party of promoting anti-Israel policies and antisemitic rhetoric.

Far-left (LFI) leader Mélenchon — who has announced his candidacy for next year’s presidential election — has been repeatedly criticized by French Jews as a threat to their community as well as those who support Israel.

Mélenchon has a long history of pushing anti-Israel policies and of making antisemitic comments — such as suggesting that Jews killed Jesus, echoing a false claim that was used to justify antisemitic violence and discrimination throughout the Middle Ages in Europe.

Mélenchon has previously said that “antisemitism remains residual in France,” remarks which critics said downplayed a sharp surge in anti-Jewish hatred that erupted following the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

He has also appeared to openly support Hezbollah and referred to the French Jewish community as “an arrogant minority that lectures to the rest.”

In the wake of the Oct. 7 atrocities, Mélenchon and his party also issued a statement declaring the attacks “an armed offensive of Palestinian forces” as a result of continued Israeli “occupation.”

Despite a sharp rise in antisemitism in France, Mélenchon’s rhetoric and policy positions have appeared largely unchanged, with critics accusing him of contributing to an increasingly hostile climate for Jews through inflammatory anti-Israel language.