"Out of a historic commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, I have decided that France will recognize the State of Palestine," he wrote.

In his statement, Macron wrote, "In keeping with a historic commitment to a just and sustainable peace in the Middle East, I have decided that France will recognize the State of Palestine. I will make this declaration official in a formal address to the UN General Assembly this coming September."

Macron stressed the urgency of halting the war in Gaza and evacuating civilians. He added, "Peace is possible," and called for "an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages, and extensive humanitarian aid for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip."

According to the French president, "It is essential to ensure the disarmament of Hamas, and to secure and rebuild Gaza." He concluded that the creation of a Palestinian state must follow, one that is viable, recognized by Israel, and disarmed, which "will contribute to the security of everyone in the Middle East."

Macron argued that "there is no alternative." He said the French people want peace in the region: "It is up to us - the French, along with Israelis, Palestinians, and our European and international partners - to show that this is possible. In light of the commitments expressed to me by [Palestinian Authority President] Mahmoud Abbas, I have conveyed to him my determination to advance a political solution."

In April, Macron had already signaled that France might recognize a Palestinian state as early as June, in the framework of an international conference co-hosted with Saudi Arabia in New York. That announcement came shortly after his return from Egypt, where he discussed the ongoing war in Gaza and described the humanitarian situation there as "unbearable."

"We must move toward recognition, and we will do so in the coming months," Macron said in an interview broadcast Thursday on France 5. "Our goal is to hold, around June, a conference on Palestine with Saudi Arabia, where we can complete the process of mutual recognition by many states," he said, summarizing the planned step, which could reshape the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East.

Later, Macron reiterated the message, stating, "I've seen numerous distorted interpretations of our policy on Gaza. France's position is clear: Yes to peace, yes to Israel's security, yes to a Palestinian state without Hamas," he wrote in Hebrew on X.

The French president emphasized that this requires the release of all hostages, a sustainable ceasefire, immediate resumption of humanitarian aid, and progress toward a two-state political solution. "There is no other path but a political solution," he said.

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On the 80th anniversary of D-Day, world leaders and veterans gathered in Normandy, France, to pay tribute to the sacrifices made during the Allied invasion that turned the tide of World War II.

US President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden met with World War II veterans at the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-Sur-Mer. At the ceremony, Biden mentioned specific American veterans present and their stories.

King Charles III laid a wreath at the British Normandy Memorial in Ver-sur-Mer, with a note acknowledging the profound sacrifices, stating, "Our gratitude is unfailing, and our admiration eternal." French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and other world leaders followed, laying wreaths at the event to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day. French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, speaking at Juno Beach where 14,000 Canadian troops landed, expressed France's eternal gratitude, saying, "France will never forget those who fell for her. Never will she forget that on this sand, the blood of Canadian youth was spilled for our freedom."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attended, while Russian President Vladimir Putin was not invited, despite Russia's involvement in the effort during the D-Day landings, due to the war in Ukraine.

The Normandy landings on June 6, 1944, were the largest seaborne invasion in history, with 24,000 American, British, and Canadian troops participating in the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France. This operation began the liberation of France and Western Europe, laying the foundations for the Allied victory on the Western Front.

Take a moment, and remember you don't need to face this at 6am tomorrow, but they did... on the longest day #dday80 #dday #rememberandhonor pic.twitter.com/5lZc4ufFWk

— Tom Rogers (@RogersHistory) June 5, 2024

Normandy veteran Ken Hay recited a stanza from Laurence Binyon's poem "For the Fallen," followed by a moment of silence to remember those who lost their lives 80 years ago. In a symbolic gesture, men from 47 Commando Royal Marines came ashore at Asnelles on Gold Beach, retracing the footsteps of their forebears from eight decades earlier. At Arromanches-les-Bains, the last Dutch Normandy veteran, Max Wolff, received a military welcome and a standing ovation.

Special moment with the last Dutch Normandy veteran Max Wolff during the Dutch DDay commemoration at Arromanches. #DDay80 pic.twitter.com/fmMHzCOmAr

— Klaas Meijer (@klaasm67) June 6, 2024

As has become an annual tradition, French citizens rubbed sand from Omaha Beach onto the gravestones of the 9,386 American soldiers buried there, giving the letters a golden shine to honor those who gave their lives to liberate Europe.

Every year on the anniversary of #DDay, French citizens take sand from Omaha Beach and rub it onto the gravestones of fallen soldiers who gave their lives to liberate Europe.

It gives the letters a golden shine.

They do this for all 9,386 American soldiers buried there. pic.twitter.com/E2F2xgUMyU

— Goodable (@Goodable) June 4, 2024

 Welsh singer Sir Tom Jones, whose grandfather died in World War I and is buried in France, performed "I Won't Crumble With You If You Fall" during the commemoration.

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The question for France's president about his teenage romance with a teacher at his high school was so close to the bone, so eye-popping in a country where politicians largely keep their private lives to themselves, that the interviewer couldn't quite rustle up the courage to ask it. So he got Emmanuel Macron to pose it to himself.

"He is the president," the French leader said, reading the question out loud from a piece of paper his interviewer handed to him. "He should set the example and not marry his teacher."

Ouch.

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A group of interviewers on the autism spectrum, described by their publication as "atypical journalists," got France's 45-year-old president to talk about himself with unusual and illuminating candor in a televised interview this weekend, with frank but fair no-filter questions that professional journalists mostly don't dare ask of the French leader.

The interviewers from Le Papotin, a journal founded in 1990 in a Paris-region daycare center for young people with autism, playfully grilled Macron about his marriage to Brigitte, his friends (he said he doesn't have many), Russian President Vladimir Putin, and other matters in his heart and thoughts.

In the process, they winkled out some remarkably intimate details and gave Macron a platform to show a more personal side at a critical juncture in his second term as president. His government is embarking on a high-risk effort to push back France's retirement age, a promised reform of the pension system that is infuriating critics and threatens to bring protesters onto the streets.

Le Papotin's interviewers have over the years questioned numerous people of note, including former Presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, and actor Vincent Cassel ("Ocean's Twelve," "Black Swan"). Their Macron interview was filmed in Paris in November and broadcast by France Televisions, which said the only rule was: "Anything can be said to the Papotin but, most of all, anything can happen!"

Macron responded gamefully, even to the probing about his romance with Brigitte, 24 years his senior. She was Brigitte Auzière, a married mother of three children when they met at the high school where he was a student and she was a teacher. She later moved to the French capital to join Macron and divorced. They married in 2007.

"It's not about setting an example or not, you see? When you're in love, the choice isn't yours," Macron said in his defense.

"She wasn't really my teacher. She was my drama teacher. It's not quite the same," he additionally ventured, a wiggle-round that Macron himself chuckled at and which provoked peals of laughter and a teasing "he's crafty!" from one of the interviewers sat beside him.

To another delicate question — "Do you have a lot of dough?" — the former banker said he earns less now as president, without divulging figures.

On friendship, he said: "It's not the best job to have lots of friends."

And of Putin, whom he's met, and the Russian president's war in Ukraine, the French leader said: "When you meet him like that, he's not unpleasant. That's the paradox."

At the end of the half-hour question-and-answer session, Macron thanked his interviewers for a job well done.

"Your questions took me onto grounds ... where I'd not been in other interviews, with other journalists," he said.

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Macron's office said on Saturday that the French leader asked Iran to "take necessary measures" to encourage negotiations in Yemen's war and urged Iran to show "the greatest restraint in Lebanon so that nothing compromises stability in this moment of great tension."

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The tense standoff between Israel and Iran around Lebanon has pushed the bitter adversaries closer toward open, armed conflict in recent weeks.

An alleged Israeli drone strike on a Hezbollah media center in Beirut last weekend destroyed precision missile infrastructure set up by the Iran-backed Shiite terrorist group, according to a report in The Times, a British newspaper.

One of the drones that crashed into the building in a Hezbollah stronghold neighborhood of Dahiya struck crates containing a high-grade propellant mix for precision-guided missiles and destroyed a remote control machine for rocket guidance, according to the report.

The IDF has kept mum on the issue, and it remains unclear whether the two drones, said to be on an intelligence-gathering mission, were downed, or whether the first drone malfunctioned and the second was sent to destroy it.

According to Macron's office, the French president also pushed again for Iran to adhere to its nuclear agreement, after trying earlier to arrange a US-Iran meeting. Macron is trying to play mediator to save the 2015 UN accord aimed at curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions that US President Donald Trump rejects.

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