Faced with tensions which continue to rise in the Middle East, the Quai d'Orsay recommended on Friday that French nationals "must absolutely refrain from traveling in the coming days" to Iran, Israel, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. He also called for the “return of the families of diplomatic agents from Tehran”
and “the ban on missions of French civil servants in these countries”.
For the moment, these are “precautionary” measures to “protect” French nationals, Christophe Lemoine, the deputy spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, explained this Saturday morning on Franceinfo.
“We are in a situation of rising tensions in the region,” he added, warning that the security situation “risks deteriorating very quickly.” The Quai d'Orsay is following the evolution of the situation "with great attention" and will "adapt" its messages accordingly, Christophe Lemoine said.
For French expatriates living in the territories concerned, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not currently recommend returning to France.
“The embassies and consulates on site are extremely mobilized to monitor the French communities living there,” underlined Christophe Lemoine, adding that they received “vigilance and security messages” which will be updated regularly.
Their possible return to France will depend “on developments in situations on the ground”, indicated the deputy spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Fear of imminent Iranian attack
Insisting on the “very strong risk of escalation” in the region, Christophe Lemoine recalled that the priority for French diplomacy is to avoid it. “We call on all stakeholders to exercise restraint, (...) calm and discussion,” he added. Paris is not the only one to have raised its alert level: the United States announced on Thursday that it was restricting the movements of its diplomatic personnel in Israel out of concern for security.
Another sign of tensions, the German airline Lufthansa and its Austrian subsidiary Austrian Airlines announced on Friday the suspension of their flights to and from Tehran until Thursday April 18, and would no longer use Iranian airspace.
On the ground, the fear of an imminent attack by Iran against Israel is increasingly feared. The United States announced Friday it was sending reinforcements to the Middle East as Israel is on alert for a possible Iranian attack. Lebanese Hezbollah, supported by Iran, announced Friday that it had launched “dozens of rockets” at Israeli positions, in response, according to it, to Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon.
Tehran has promised a response to the strike attributed to Israel against the Iranian consulate in Damascus which, according to an NGO, left 16 dead, including two generals of the Revolutionary Guards, Iran's ideological army.
At the stroke of midnight on Saturday, the Israeli army indicated that alerts sounded around the Gaza Strip while Islamic Jihad, the second largest Palestinian Islamist group after Hamas, simultaneously claimed responsibility for shooting towards the Israeli town of Sderot. in “response” to the strikes in Gaza.