"I don't like what you did in front of me," French President Emmanuel Macron shouted to an Israeli police officer in Jerusalem on Wednesday, January 22, recalling a scene involving Jacques Chirac almost a quarter of a century earlier in the same places.

Chaining handshakes and "selfies", the French president improvised a stroll in the old city of Jerusalem, after talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials.

The president had not planned to go to the Old City except at the Sainte-Anne basilica, French territory in Jerusalem where a clash had already taken place between members of the French security group and an agent of the Israeli security forces having wanted to enter the church.

"What I wanted to do first was to walk freely in the Old City and pass through all the places that also make the history of this city and its symbols," said the president, smiling. his ride.


Israeli security forces maintained throughout the day "a very visible and very tight security bubble," said Ludovic Marin, AFP photojournalist who covers the displacement. "We felt a certain gravity of security without there being any tension elsewhere in the passage of the President in the Old City".

As he prepares to return to Sainte-Anne, Emmanuel Macron has a firm discussion with a person who seems to be an official of the Israeli security service, apparently to tell them that they should not enter the building.

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"French security is ensured inside (...) it has always been like that under the control of our consul general", he launches, according to images from the Figaro, before concluding dryly: "Do not no things that are provocation, I am president of the French Republic, it is I who know. "

"I don't like what you did in front of me"

A few seconds later, a stampede intervenes as the two security services try to return at the same time as him.

"Everyone goes out," says Emmanuel Macron, before raising his voice in English, in front of an Israeli policeman: "I don't like what you did in front of me" ("I don't like what you did in front of me").

"We did a wonderful walk (...) but please respect the rules established for centuries (...) It is France here, and everyone knows the rule", underlined again the Head of State, whose verbal altercation recalls that in 1996 of former President Jacques Chirac in the same district.


The former president, who died in September 2019, got angry with Israeli soldiers who framed him too closely by launching his now famous "Do you want me to go back to my plane?" (Do you want me to get back on my plane?), Before demanding that the soldiers leave the Sainte-Anne domain.

"A moment of nervousness between the security teams, it was up to me to put it in order"

After meeting religious at the basilica, Emmanuel Macron went, like Chirac at the time, to the esplanade des Mosques.

Called Noble Sanctuary by Muslims, Temple Mount by Jews, the Esplanade of the Mosques is the third holiest site in Islam and the most sacred site for the Jews. He then went to the Wailing Wall, black kippah on his head, for his first visit to the Holy Land since his election.

The Israeli media took over the incident. It has also sparked reactions on social networks in Europe, Israel and the Arab world.

"The passage through the Old City was very calm and warm, several traders elsewhere remembered the passage of President Chirac," said Emmanuel Macron at the end of the day. "There was a moment of nervousness between the security teams, and it was up to me to put it in order," he said. "The parenthesis has been closed," he said.

"Upon leaving, the president's team apologized for the incident, the president shook hands with the troops and continued his visit to the Old City," said Shin Beth, Israel's internal security service.

During the Chirac episode, Israel was led by a young Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, also in power today, who may one day say that he lived through the "Chirac" and "Macron" moments.

With AFP

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