By Uzair Saleem | SCN NEWS
UNITED NATIONS, New York, Sept. 22 (SCN NEWS) — French President Emmanuel Macron used his final address to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday to sharply challenge U.S. President Donald Trump’s portrayal of Gaza as a diplomatic success, saying proclaimed peace had failed to reopen humanitarian access and warning that developments in the occupied West Bank were steadily undermining the possibility of a Palestinian state.
Speaking from the same General Assembly podium hours after Trump hailed his Gaza peace plan as an achievement, Macron questioned what credibility the international community retained if it remained unable to change conditions on the ground. He said that despite claims that peace had been achieved, humanitarian access to Gaza had not been restored.
Macron described the situation as a spectacle that should bring shame, delivering one of the clearest public challenges by a major U.S. ally to Trump’s account of his Middle East diplomacy during the opening day of UNGA81. Trump had earlier told the Assembly that his administration had ended the Gaza war and saved large numbers of lives.
The White House rejected Macron’s criticism. Spokeswoman Anna Kelly said Trump had ended the war between Israel and Hamas, secured the release of living hostages and return of the bodies of those who died, and was leading implementation of his 20-point Gaza peace plan. She argued that Trump had done more for regional peace and stability than his critics.
Macron’s intervention was particularly significant because it was his last General Assembly address before he leaves the French presidency next year. Seven months before France’s presidential election, he used the appearance to defend multilateral diplomacy and argue that declarations of peace carried little meaning without measurable improvements for civilians.
Gaza was not Macron’s only concern. He warned that developments in the occupied West Bank were making a viable Palestinian state increasingly difficult to achieve, pointing to settlement expansion and other actions that France and several partners have said threaten the two-state solution.
France formally recognised the State of Palestine last year and has since sought to turn that recognition into a broader diplomatic effort. Earlier this month, France, Britain and Canada announced measures targeting Israeli settlements and those facilitating or profiting from them, while reiterating support for a secure Israel alongside a secure Palestinian state.
Macron acknowledged criticism that recognition alone had failed to transform realities on the ground, but rejected the argument that this made recognition meaningless. His broader case was that diplomatic recognition had to be accompanied by action capable of preserving the territorial and political basis for eventual Palestinian statehood.
France’s relations with Israel have become increasingly strained over the past year. Macron warned Tuesday that those who believed Israel could achieve lasting security by violating the sovereignty of neighbouring states were mistaken, arguing that such policies could instead weaken Israeli security over time.
His remarks came as Gaza and the wider Middle East dominated the first day of the General Debate. UN Secretary-General António Guterres earlier called for fighting to stop, humanitarian aid to flow and international law to be respected, while warning that settlement expansion and displacement in the West Bank were eroding the path toward a two-state solution.
Macron also addressed Ukraine and the economic consequences of conflicts in both Ukraine and the Middle East. The French presidency said he had discussed with Trump efforts to secure a moratorium on strikes against Ukrainian energy and civilian infrastructure, while the two leaders also agreed to work on easing pressure on global energy markets.
But Gaza provided the defining confrontation of Macron’s farewell appearance. Trump presented his administration’s intervention as evidence of successful American peacemaking; Macron argued that the test should instead be whether civilians receive humanitarian relief and whether diplomacy preserves a viable political future for Palestinians.
The exchange exposed a wider disagreement running through UNGA81 over what constitutes progress in Gaza. Washington points to the end of large-scale fighting, hostage outcomes and implementation of its peace framework, while Macron and other European governments are increasingly focusing on humanitarian access and whether developments in the West Bank are making a future Palestinian state impossible.
Macron ended his final General Assembly appearance by reaffirming his support for the institution and multilateralism, declaring: “Long live the United Nations.”
For France’s outgoing president, the farewell message was therefore also a warning: diplomatic declarations cannot substitute for conditions on the ground, and any Gaza settlement that fails to restore humanitarian access or protect the possibility of Palestinian statehood cannot, in Paris’s view, be treated as a completed peace.