25 October 2024

While Israel has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, 70% of whom are women and children, has escalated its assault in the north of Gaza, and continues its attacks in the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) and in Lebanon, political, military and industrial decision-makers in the naval defence sector from all over the world will meet from 4 to 7 November 2024 at the Paris Nord-Villepinte Exhibition Centre (93) for EURONAVAL, “the world's naval defence exhibition”.

On 25 October, SOGENA, the exhibition’s organiser and a subsidiary of GICAN (The French Maritime Industry Association), was called upon through legal notice by a group of organisations to justify within eight days the measures taken to prevent the sales of weapons likely to be used in the commission of crimes in the oPt and Lebanon, and to ban the participation of companies likely to be involved in these crimes, hence contributing to strengthening their economic power.

Last June, following a months-long campaign of grassroots mobilization combined with legal action launched by several of our organisations and collectives, the French government banned Israeli companies from exhibiting at the Eurosatory arms fair.

The French judiciary had also banned the participation of Israeli trade visitors and their potential intermediaries by a ruling handed down by the Bobigny Judicial Court on 14 June 2024. Although the Paris Court of Appeal overturned this ruling, it was not done so based on the merits. Instead, the Court ruled that there were no grounds for summary proceedings.

While the French president, Emmanuel Macron, called for an end to arms sales to Israel in early October, France’s position on arms trade with Israel remains ambiguous. On 16 October, the Euronaval website announced that the government had “approved the participation of Israeli delegations in the Euronaval 2024 exhibition, without stands or equipment”, specifying that seven Israeli companies were affected by this decision.

On 18 October, however, the French government announced in the French Agency of Press (AFP) article that “there was never any question of prohibiting the participation of Israeli companies”. The Euronaval website now announces that these companies “will be able to have a stand provided that their products are not used in military operations in Gaza and Lebanon”.

By allowing Israel, through its arms manufacturers or political, military or commercial representatives, to participate in the Euronaval exhibition in any manner, the exhibition’s organisers could be encouraging arms trade with a state committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and plausibly the crime of genocide per the International Court of Justice, whose most senior officials have been the subject of requests for arrest warrants before the International Criminal Court. Hence, the exhibition’s organisers may be liable for complicity in these crimes.

Our organisations therefore urge SOGENA to take all measures in its power, including through banning Israeli companies and delegations, or any intermediary of Israel at the exhibition, in order to prevent the establishment of commercial relations at EURONAVAL in violation of international law binding upon France. Otherwise, we reserve the right to take legal action.

The legal notice was filed on behalf of the organisations Al-Haq, EuroPalestine, UJFP, Stop Fueling War and Aser, and the collectives Stop Arming Israel France, Urgence Palestine, Les Comités d'Etudiants en Soutien à la Palestine de Paris, represented by Dominique Cochain, and supported and coordinated by Droits et Mouvements Sociaux.

Read this statement in French, here. 

Press contacts :

- Stop Arming Israel France, collective formed in november 2023, in response to the call of more than 30 Palestinian unions asking countries complicit with Israel to “end all complicity – stop arming Israel” : [email protected]

- Urgence Palestine: the Urgence Palestine Collective bring together citizens, organizations, associative mouvements, trade union and political organizations mobilized for the self -determination of the Palestinian people : [email protected]

-Al Haq, Independent non-governmental organization founded in 1979 to compensate for the lack of human rights protection mechanisms in Palestine, affiliated member of various international organizations, including the International Federation for Human Rights and the International Commission of Jurists : [email protected]