Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Emmanuel Macron hosts ceremony honoring 42 French victims of Oct. 7 attack on Israel

The ceremony had generated political controversy when members of a far-left party announced plans to attend

(JTA) — French President Emmanuel Macron presided over a somber ceremony in Paris on Wednesday to honor the 42 French nationals murdered during the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel.

France flew relatives of the victims on a special flight to the ceremony, held in pouring rain in the courtyard of Les Invalides, the national memorial where Napoleon is buried.

Each victim was represented by a photograph, and three empty chairs were placed to represent the three French nationals who remain hostages in Gaza. The names of each victim appeared on a large screen as a violinist played the instrumental Kaddish written by the French composer Maurice Ravel.

“Hamas launched a massive surprise attack, the largest antisemitic massacre of our century,” Macron said, before denouncing “barbarism … which feeds on antisemitism and propagates it” and vowing to work toward peace in the Middle East.

Macron, a centrist, has faced pressure from all sides in his response to the Oct. 7 attack and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza. After initially expressing strong support for Israel’s self-defense in the wake of the attack, he was one of the first leaders of Israel’s allied countries to openly criticize the civilian death toll in Gaza. He also drew criticism from some Jewish groups when he did not attend a major rally against antisemitism in November, although representatives of his government were on hand.

A far-left party, France Unbowed, boycotted the November march in a reflection of the long-held anti-Israel views of its leader, Jean-Luc Melenchon, who said that those who gathered would be “friends of unconditional support for the massacre” in Gaza.

In the lead-up to Wednesday’s memorial service, families of some of the victims said they did not want Melenchon or his fellow party leaders to attend. But France Unbowed representatives were on hand for the ceremony, as was the far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

The ceremony was streamed into Hostage Square, the Tel Aviv site that has become a gathering point for families of the Israelis who remain hostages in Gaza and their supporters. In attendance there, according to Israeli media reports, was Hadas Kalderon, whose sons were taken hostage and later released but whose ex-husband remains in captivity and whose mother and niece were murdered on Oct. 7. All hold French citizenship.

Relatives of the French Oct. 7 victims said they were pleased by the decision of the government to honor their family members.

“This is an important and positive gesture, one we must focus on,” Orelia Bliah, head of the French-speaking branch of the OneFamily Fund, an Israeli organization that supports victims of terrorism and their families, said in a statement. “This ceremony deeply moved the families.“

The French government will hold a separate ceremony on Friday to memorialize French victims of the Israeli counteroffensive in Gaza.

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.