France has barred Israel from participating in this month’s Eurosatory defense exhibition in Paris, the Defense Ministry said Monday, preventing the ministry from establishing a national pavilion or sending government representatives to the event.
Eurosatory is one of the world’s leading defense expos, showcasing military systems and other security innovations from across the globe.
According to the ministry, French authorities will only permit Israeli companies to display air defense systems, while prohibiting the exhibition of offensive weapon systems.
In a sharply worded statement, the ministry condemned the move as a “disgraceful decision” driven by “political and commercial calculation,” accusing France of applying discriminatory restrictions to Israel that are not imposed on other participating countries “in direct violation of the established norms governing international defense exhibitions.”
France is “acting in direct contradiction to the principles it claims to uphold,” the Defense Ministry added, arguing that Israeli offensive systems have demonstrated their effectiveness against “terrorist organizations and regimes threatening not only Israel, but regional and global stability at large.”
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Similarly, French authorities initially banned Israeli defense firms from exhibiting at the 2024 Eurosatory, before later reversing the decision. Organizers erected black partition walls around Israeli company exhibits displaying offensive weapons systems at the 2025 Paris Air Show.
Protestors gather outside the Eurosatory exhibition, a global event for Defence and Security, in Villepinte, outside Paris, June 17, 2024. A French court has banned Israeli exhibitors from participating, the banner reads: ‘Arms dealers accomplices’. (AP Photo/Masha Macpherson)
The most recent ban came amid growing tensions between Jerusalem and Paris. In April, the Defense Ministry halted all defense procurement from France in response to French measures that it said “harmed Israel’s security,” including prohibiting Israeli aircraft from using French airspace during the US-led war on Iran.
The US also claimed that France refused it the use of its airspace for military purposes during the war.
Further straining France’s relationship with Israel is its exclusion from mediating direct talks between Israel and Lebanon in Washington.
The absence is not for lack of interest, with French President Emmanuel Macron offering in March for his country to host direct talks between Israel and Lebanon, and telling President Isaac Herzog over the phone that “France is working to promote this goal.”
France’s President Emmanuel Macron attends a joint statement with Masayoshi Son, Chairman and CEO of SoftBank Group Corp., at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris, June 1, 2026. (Ludovic Marin/Pool Photo via AP)
On Sunday, Macron said that “nothing justifies the major escalation underway in south Lebanon,” following France’s request for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council after Israeli forces seized the medieval Beaufort castle in Lebanon.
Macron also criticized Israel’s defense establishment during the Iran war, openly condemning the scale of the US-Israeli campaign against the Islamic Republic, and urging a diplomatic solution to the conflict and a halt to fighting in Lebanon against the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group.
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