France on Tuesday banned Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich from entering its territory, condemning him for actively promoting the annexation of the West Bank and the “re-colonisation” of Gaza, Ada Derana reported, citing agency wires.
Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot announced the move on X. “Four leaders of settler organisations, and twenty-one violent settlers” were also banned from French territory, he wrote, denouncing a “policy that the overwhelming majority of the international community, firmly committed to the two-state solution, cannot accept”. Barrot said the new sanctions targeted “those responsible for the intensification of settlement-building and violence in the West Bank” and were issued in tandem with the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Norway.
Smotrich, of the far-right Religious Zionist party, is the second Israeli minister Paris has banned in recent months. France barred National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir last month after he mocked bound activists seized by Israeli soldiers on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla. Together, Ben Gvir and Smotrich form a cornerstone of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition. Ireland imposed a similar bar on both ministers in recent days.
The United Kingdom blacklisted the pair in June 2025 and other countries followed, including Spain and Slovenia. Tuesday’s six-country statement is the most coordinated Western move yet against Netanyahu’s right flank, sharpening the diplomatic gap between Israel’s coalition partners and traditional NATO allies, and lands amid the active Israel-Lebanon ceasefire implementation effort and just over two weeks after France imposed an identical entry ban on Ben Gvir over the flotilla incident.
Israel had not issued an immediate response to the French announcement at the time of Ada Derana’s report.
