The Fischer-Chauvel Agreement (or Fischer-Chauvel Agreements) is an agreement made in 1948 and 1949 between the French and Israeli governments involving the status of a number of French institutions in the newly-founded State of Israel and claimed by France as the French national domain in the Holy Land . The agreement was signed for Israel by Maurice Fischer (1903–1965), an Israeli diplomat in France at the time.
Israel holds the view that the Israeli Declaration of Independence created a new international personality that is not a successor state of the Ottoman Empire or the British Mandate and so it is bound only by those former international obligations affecting the territory as Israel might accept. [1] Under Israeli law, the Knesset must ratify international agreements before they become part of domestic law, which it has never done in the case of the Fischer-Chauvel Agreement. [2] [3] Nevertheless, Israel has maintained the previous tax exemptions and privileges of the sites claimed as domaine national. [2]
The French claims are based on claimed acquisitions predating the formation of the State of Israel, specifically in the Accords of Mytilene of November 1901, the Agreement of Constantinople of 18 December 1913, [4] and the Fischer-Chauvel Agreement of 6 September 1948 to 31 January 1949. [2]
There are four sites in Jerusalem claimed by France as domaine national:
The agreement was invoked by France in late 1963 in a so-called "Of Pigs and Men" affair, involving some 40 pigs being raised in the convent of Les Filles de la Charitė in Ein Kerem despite a ban by Israel on such activity. [3]
French presidents have claimed that the Church of Saint Anne in Jerusalem remains under French protection, is owned by the French Republic, and is therefore a dependency of the French territory. In 1996, during Jacques Chirac's visit to Jerusalem, the French president refused to enter the church until Israeli soldiers who were accompanying him had left. On 22 January 2020, French President Emmanuel Macron demanded that Israeli security services leave the church compound and invoked "the rules that have existed for several centuries". [5] [6] The Israeli government has not made any public statement relating to the French incidents.
On November 7, 2024, a new diplomatic incident between France and Israel occurred at the Church of the Pater Noster when Israeli soldiers arrested French gendarmes protecting the Catholic place of worship, de facto not recognizing its jurisdiction as a French domain. [7]
The 1949 Armistice Agreements, which ended the 1948 Arab–Israeli War by delineating the Green Line as the legal boundary between Israel and the Arab countries, left the Kingdom of Egypt in control of a small swath of territory that it had captured and occupied in the former British Mandate for Palestine: the Gaza Strip. This period saw the creation of the All-Palestine Government within the All-Palestine Protectorate, an Egyptian client state that lasted until 1959, a year after the Republic of Egypt and the Second Syrian Republic merged to form a single sovereign state known as the United Arab Republic. The Egyptian occupation of the Gaza Strip was briefly subsumed by Israel during the 1956 Suez Crisis and ended entirely during the 1967 Arab–Israeli War, after which the territory became occupied by Israel with the establishment of the Israeli Military Governorate.
Al-Bireh, al-Birah, or el-Bira is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank, 15 kilometers (9.3 mi) north of Jerusalem. It is the capital of the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate of the State of Palestine. It is situated on the central ridge running through the West Bank and is 860 meters (2,820 ft) above sea level, covering an area of 22.4 square kilometers (8.6 sq mi). Al-Bireh is under the administration of the Palestinian National Authority.
At-Tur is an Arab-majority neighborhood on the Mount of Olives approximately 1 km east of the Old City of Jerusalem. At-Tur is situated in East Jerusalem, occupied and later effectively annexed by Israel after the Six-Day War in 1967.
The status of Jerusalem has been described as "one of the most intractable issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict" due to the long-running territorial dispute between Israel and the Palestinians, both of which claim it as their capital city. Part of this issue of sovereignty is tied to concerns over access to holy sites in the Abrahamic religions; the current religious environment in Jerusalem is upheld by the "Status Quo" of the former Ottoman Empire. As the Israeli–Palestinian peace process has primarily navigated the option of a two-state solution, one of the largest points of contention has been East Jerusalem, which was part of the Jordanian-annexed West Bank until the beginning of the Israeli occupation in 1967.
The modern borders of Israel exist as the result both of past wars and of diplomatic agreements between the State of Israel and its neighbours, as well as an effect of the agreements among colonial powers ruling in the region before Israel's creation. Only two of Israel's five total potential land borders are internationally recognized and uncontested, while the other three remain disputed; the majority of its border disputes are rooted in territorial changes that came about as a result of the 1967 Arab–Israeli War, which saw Israel occupy large swathes of territory from its rivals. Israel's two formally recognized and confirmed borders exist with Egypt and Jordan since the 1979 Egypt–Israel peace treaty and the 1994 Israel–Jordan peace treaty, while its borders with Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories remain internationally defined as contested.
Relations between France and Algeria span more than five centuries. Through this period, there have been many changes within each of the nations, with consequent effects on their relations. Algeria was once part of the Ottoman Empire, and in the 19th century was conquered and colonized by France. It played an important role in both world wars.
Bruno Daniel Marie Paul Retailleau is a French politician who has served as Minister of the Interior since September 2024.
The Church of the Pater Noster is a Roman Catholic church located on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. It is part of a Carmelite monastery, also known as the Sanctuary of the Eleona. The Church of the Pater Noster stands right next to the ruins of the 4th-century Byzantine Church of Eleona. The ruins of the Eleona were rediscovered in the 20th century and its walls were partially rebuilt. Today, France administers the land on which both churches and the entire monastery are standing, following the Ottoman capitulations, as the Eleona Domain, part of the French national domain in the Holy Land, which has been formalised by the Fischer-Chauvel Agreement of 1948-49, though the agreement has not been ratified by Israel’s Knesset.
French–Turkish relations cover a long period from the 16th century to the present, starting with the alliance established between Francis I and Suleiman the Magnificent. Relations remained essentially friendly during a period of nearly three centuries, with the resumption of intense contacts from the reign of Louis XIV. Relations became more complex with the French campaign in Egypt and Syria by Napoleon I in 1798, and the dawn of the modern era. Both countries are members of the Council of Europe and NATO. France is an EU member and Turkey is an EU candidate. France opposes Turkey's accession negotiations to the EU, although negotiations have now been suspended.
Baron Edmond Adolphe Maurice Jules Jacques de Rothschild or Baron Edmond de Rothschild was a French-Swiss banker, the founder of the Edmond de Rothschild Group in 1953. His investments extended to vineyards, yacht racing, farming and hospitality.
The Church of Saint Anne is a French Roman Catholic church and part of the Domaine national français located in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, near the start of the Via Dolorosa, next to the Lions' Gate.
The Consulate General of France in Jerusalem is the diplomatic mission of France in Jerusalem. It officially serves to the Palestinians and maintains contact with the government of Palestine. The consulate is located nearby the Old City of Jerusalem, on Paul Emile Botta Street, named after French archaeologist Paul-Émile Botta
The Benedictine monastery in Abu Ghosh, officially St Mary of the Resurrection Abbey, is a monastery run by the Olivetan Benedictine order in Abu Ghosh, Israel.
The Status Quo is an understanding among religious communities with respect to nine shared religious sites in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Other holy places in Israel and Palestine were not deemed subject to the Status Quo, because the authorities of one religion or community within a religion are in recognized or effective possession of them.
Events from the year 2017 in France.
Sarah Halimi was a retired French doctor and schoolteacher who was attacked and killed in her apartment on 4 April 2017. Circumstances surrounding the killing—including the fact that Halimi was Jewish, and that the assailant had shouted Allahu akbar during the attack and afterward proclaimed "I killed the Shaitan"—cemented the public perception, particularly among the French Jewish community, that it was a stark example of antisemitism in modern France.
On 23 March 2018, an Islamic terrorist carried out three attacks in the town of Carcassonne and nearby village of Trèbes in the Aude department in southwestern France, killing three people and injuring fifteen.
Arnaud Jean-Georges Beltrame was a lieutenant colonel in the French Gendarmerie nationale and deputy commander of the Departmental Gendarmerie's Aude unit, who was murdered by an Islamic terrorist at Trèbes after having exchanged himself for a hostage. French President Emmanuel Macron said that Beltrame deserved "the respect and admiration of the whole nation." A state funeral was held at Les Invalides, Paris; for his bravery and adherence to duty he was posthumously promoted to the rank of colonel and made a Commander of the Legion of Honour.
The New Ecological and Social People's Union was a left-wing electoral alliance of political parties in France. Formed on May Day 2022, the alliance included La France Insoumise (LFI), the Socialist Party (PS), the French Communist Party (PCF), The Ecologists (LE), Ensemble! (E!), and Génération.s (G.s), and their respective smaller partners. It was the first wide left-wing political alliance since the Plural Left in the 1997 French legislative election. Over 70 dissident candidates who refused the accord still ran.