France's main Jewish students union has plastered walls around Paris with posters bearing the faces of French citizens believed to be held hostage by Hamas in their war with Israel. Very little is known about the hostages locked away in the Gaza Strip or whether some of those captured during the Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel have been killed in the Jewish state’s brutal counter-offensive. French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said Sunday during a visit to Israel that 19 French citizens are known to have been killed and 13 others are missing.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday vowed that France would do everything to ensure the release of the dozens of hostages held by Palestinian militant group Hamas after its attack on Israel. His comments came after the families of French citizens held hostage by Hamas militants in Gaza urged the president to step in to help secure their release.
Several French children are missing and are likely among the hostages held in Gaza following Saturday's attack by Hamas against Israel, French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said on Wednesday. "I want to have a special thought for the French victims (in Israel) and for our missing compatriots, whose situation is extremely worrying. Among them, several children, probably kidnapped," she told senators.
Daniel Judt, a junior at the Dalton School, is a section editor of his school’s political magazine, Realpolitik. He is currently an intern at The Nation.
France prepared to evacuate French and other European citizens from Niger on Tuesday, six days after a coup that toppled one of the last pro-Western leaders in the jihadist-plagued Sahel and stoked anti-French demonstrations