By Paul Sandle, Giulia Segreti, Steven Scheer and Tim Hepher
PARIS/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -France shut down the main Israeli company stands at the Paris Airshow on Monday for refusing to remove attack weapons from display, sparking a furious response from Israel and inflaming tensions between the traditional allies.
Stands including those of Elbit Systems, Rafael, IAI and Uvision were blocked off with black partitions before the start of the world’s biggest aviation trade fair. Smaller Israeli stands, which didn’t have hardware on display, and an Israeli Ministry of Defence stand, remained open.
France, a long-time Israeli ally, has gradually hardened its position on the government of Benjamin Netanyahu over its actions in Gaza and military interventions abroad.
French President Emmanuel Macron made a distinction last week between Israel’s right to protect itself, which France supports and could take part in, and strikes on Iran it did not recommend.
The office of French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou said it had told all exhibitors ahead of the show that offensive weapons would be prohibited from display and that Israel’s embassy in Paris had agreed to this. It added that the companies could resume their exhibits if they complied with this requirement.
Bayrou told reporters that given France’s diplomatic stance, and “in particular its … very great concern about Gaza”, the government had felt it unacceptable for attack weapons to be on show.
But Israel’s defence ministry reacted with fury.
“This outrageous and unprecedented decision reeks of policy-driven and commercial considerations,” it said in a statement.
“The French are hiding behind supposedly political considerations to exclude Israeli offensive weapons from an international exhibition – weapons that compete with French industries.”
The ministry later added it was filing court petitions against the decision.
IAI’s president and CEO, Boaz Levy, said the black partitions were reminiscent of “the dark days of when Jews were segmented from European society”.
Two U.S. Republican politicians attending the air show also criticised the French move.
Talking to reporters outside the blacked-out Israeli defence stalls, U.S. Republican Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders described the decision as “pretty absurd”, while Republican Senator Katie Britt criticised it as “short-sighted”.
Meshar Sasson, senior vice president at Elbit Systems, accused France of trying to stymie competition, pointing to a series of contracts that Elbit has won in Europe.
“If you cannot beat them in technology, just hide them right? That’s what it is because there’s no other explanation,” he said.
Rafael described the French move as “unprecedented, unjustified, and politically motivated”.
The air show’s organiser said in a statement that it was in talks to try to help “the various parties find a favourable outcome to the situation”.
(Reporting by Paul Sandle, Tim Hepher, Giulia Segreti, Steven Scheer, Joe Brock, Michel Rose, John Irish and Geert de Clercq. Editing by Mark Potter)
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