France has publicly broken from the United States and Israel by insisting that Lebanon must be included in any ceasefire agreement between Washington and Tehran.
Pascal Confavreux, spokesperson for the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, told Fox News that Lebanon “has to be included” in the ceasefire framework. “The strikes have to stop on Lebanon,” Confavreux said, adding that the country has been “heavily destabilised” with one million people now displaced.
“This destabilisation will only be a reward to Hezbollah in the future,” Confavreux warned, noting that Iran “has to stop terrorising Israel through Hezbollah.”
The French position directly contradicts the stance taken by both the United States and Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has explicitly excluded Lebanon from the two-week ceasefire framework brokered by Pakistan on April 8. Washington has backed Israel’s position that the Iran-US ceasefire and the Lebanon conflict are separate tracks.
Iran and Pakistan, the ceasefire mediator, have argued that Lebanon should be part of any comprehensive deal — a view France now appears to share.
The intervention from Paris adds a significant European diplomatic dimension to a crisis that has so far been dominated by US-Iran bilateral dynamics. France, a former colonial power in Lebanon and a permanent UN Security Council member, carries particular weight on Lebanese affairs.
Israel has killed over 300 people in Lebanon since the broader conflict escalated, with Hezbollah rockets continuing to strike northern Israel in parallel.
