"I don't like what you did in front of me, get out! In a few minutes, the images showing the altercation between Emmanuel Macron and Israeli police in front of the Sainte-Anne church in Jerusalem went around the world. They are reminiscent of a similar altercation, in 1996, in front of the same building, when Jacques Chirac made his first visit to Israel as French president. But why has this place of worship twice caused tension between a French president and the Israeli police?
The answer is linked to the status of this church. Saint Anne of Jerusalem, which is in the Muslim quarter of the city, is one of the four French territories of Jerusalem. This Romanesque church, built in the 12th century by the Crusaders, was donated to France by the Ottoman Empire in 1856.
And it was the presence of the military, then of the Israeli police in this French enclave that angered the two French presidents, more than 20 years apart.
Macron, 24 years after Chirac
On October 25, 1996, Jacques Chirac began his first major diplomatic tour. As he walks through the streets of the Old City in Jerusalem, the presence of an important Israeli security service prevents him from greeting the Palestinians who reach out to him. This is where he gets carried away and pronounces the famous “You want me to take my plane and to go back to France? "(" You want me to take my plane and return to France, is that it? "), Since made history.
A few minutes later, the French president must go to the Sainte-Anne church, like Emmanuel Macron this Wednesday. But he refuses to enter the church. The cause is the presence of Israeli soldiers inside the site. "I don't want armed people on French territory ... I'll wait," explains Jacques Chirac.
This Wednesday, therefore, a strangely similar scene occurred in Jerusalem, during the displacement in Israel of Emmanuel Macron. As Israeli police blocked the entrance to the Sainte-Anne church, the president got carried away, in English, with a French accent reminiscent of that of his predecessor.
"Come out please, nobody has to provoke anyone, is that understood?" ", He launched. "Please follow the rules that have been in place for centuries, they will not change with me, I can tell you," he added. It's France here, and everyone knows the rule. The police eventually cleared the passage, letting the French head of state enter the church.
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VIDEO. "Since the morning, there were clashes": Macron's anger shot in Israel deciphered
Four territories acquired in the 19th century
France has three other territories in Jerusalem: Éléona, land acquired the same year where the Church of Pater Noster rises, the Tomb of the Kings, excavated by French archaeologists from 1863 and given to the French State in 1886, and the monastery of Abu Gosh, given to France in 1873 by Sultan Abdulaziz. These French possessions were consolidated by international agreements over the 20th century.
But in recent years, the Tomb of the Kings has been the subject of quarrels between the two countries. Closed to visitors since the early 2000s, the place reopened its doors last November and visitors must now register with the French consulate in Jerusalem and pay their entrance ticket (2.5 euros) . Conditions which some Orthodox Jews hardly support, for whom the Tomb of Kings is a place of worship. An association linked to the great Israeli rabbinate also disputes the acquisition by France, at the end of the 19th century, of this royal necropolis.
Sign that the incident with Emmanuel Macron is not isolated and that the French presence causes tensions, this Wednesday, another incident took place in the morning. A few hours before the arrival of Emmanuel Macron at the Sainte-Anne church in Jerusalem, a clash in fact opposed members of the group responsible for his security and a member of the Israeli security forces who wanted to enter the basilica.
