France plans to recognise a Palestinian state within a few months and may take this step at the UN conference in New York in June on the settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This was stated by President Emmanuel Macron, reports AFP.

"We have to move towards recognition and we will do it in the coming months," Macron, who visited Egypt this week, told France 5 television.

"Our goal is to chair this conference with Saudi Arabia in June where we could finalise this movement of mutual recognition (of a Palestinian state) by several countries," he said.

"I will do it because I believe that at some point it will be right, and because I also want to participate in a collective dynamic that should allow all those who defend Palestine to recognize Israel in turn, which many of them do not," the French president explained.

Such recognition would allow France "to be clear in its fight against those who deny Israel's right to exist - as is the case with Iran - and to commit itself to collective security in the region," Macron added.

France has long advocated a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including after the attack by Palestinian Hamas militants on Israel on October 7, 2023.

However, formal recognition of a Palestinian state by Paris would mark a major shift in policy and risk angering Israel, which insists such steps by foreign states are premature.

In Egypt, Macron held high-level talks with President Abdel Fattah Sisi and Jordan's King Abdullah II. | BGNES