Since the 19th century, several sacred sites in Jerusalem have been part of France’s national domain, including the Eleona, where a Franco-Israeli diplomatic incident took place.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot’s visit to Jerusalem was marked on Thursday by by a diplomatic incidentwhen Israeli police entered “armed” and “without authorization”according to the minister, on a site managed by France: the church of Eleona, located at the top of the Mount of Olives. Jean-Noël Barrot denounced a “unacceptable situation” and refused to enter the pilgrimage site, while Israeli police arrested two French gendarmes on the spot, journalists observed.
The Eleona (from the Greek elaion, “the olive grove) is located on the site where, according to biblical tradition, Jesus Christ taught his disciples the Lord’s Prayer. Religious buildings were erected here as early as the 4th century: a church, then a cloister and a sanctuary. Today, the site attracts many pilgrims.
The church of Eleona is one of several French possessions in Jerusalem, known as the French National Domain in the Holy Land, owned and administered by the French Republic through the French Consulate General in Jerusalem. In addition to Eleona, this estate also includes the Abu Gosh monastery (a former hospital commandery turned monastery), the tomb of the Kings of Judea, and the church of Sainte-Anne, where the mother of the Virgin Mary is said to have lived.
This national estate is a legacy of the 19th century, when France acquired several holy sites in Jerusalem. After the Crusades in the Holy Land, the Crusader chiefs divided the Levant region into several fiefdoms, before the Ottomans gradually took possession of the former Latin states of the East after their fall. A few centuries later, however, the Church of Saint Anne was offered to Napoleon III by the Turkish sultan in 1856, and became the first possession of the French state in Jerusalem.
The church of Eleona was acquired by a French aristocrat, Héloïse de la Tour d’Auvergne, in 1856, before she donated it to France on her death in 1874.
Two previous diplomatic incidents
Two diplomatic incidents similar to this one took place at Sainte-Anne church. In October 1996, Jacques Chirac made his first visit to Israel as French president, he lost his temper against the Israeli security services escorting his walk through the streets of Jerusalem, before demanding that Israeli soldiers seated inside the church leave the premises – which they eventually did. “I don’t want armed people on French territory… I’ll wait!” declared Jacques Chirac.
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January 2020, Emmanuel Macron got carried away for the same reasons when confronted by Israeli policemen blocking the entrance to the church in front of him.
What law applies in these French possessions?
Although France’s national domain in Jerusalem has been part of Israeli territory since the conquest of East Jerusalem by Israeli armed forces in 1967, it is under the control of the French Consulate General in Jerusalem. “This means that an armed policeman or soldier from another country does not have the right to enter without the agreement of the French consulate.”Frédéric Encel, doctor in geopolitics and Middle East specialist, believes that this is the case.
In fact, there is sometimes confusion. No property owned by one state on the soil of another, not even an embassy or consulate, constitutes a “state of war”. “territory”. of the country represented. But embassies and consulates are also “diplomatic outpostsUnder the terms of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, these are spaces protected from any intrusion by the authorities of the country of residence.
According to the former French ambassador to Israel, Gérard Araud, interviewed by Le FigaroFrance’s national domain in Jerusalem is not a diplomatic right-of-way in the same way as the embassy. “So the law of the host country applies.”says the diplomat. Contradicting Jacques Chirac’s claim that French possessions in Jerusalem are “French territories. Gérard Araud adds: “The objection we could make is that we do not recognize Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem, but in fact we have respected it…”
In other words, the arrest of the two gendarmes in the grounds of the Eleona church is less a violation of French territory than a major diplomatic incident between the two countries. France has indicated that it will summon the Israeli ambassador to Paris following the incident.