PARIS — France adopted sanctions against 28 Israeli settlers Tuesday, signaling it was toughening its tone against Israel. Following in the footsteps of the United States and Great Britain, which adopted similar measures in recent days, France is the first European Union country to act on the issue.
A statement issued by the French Foreign Ministry said Paris decided to sanction "extremist Israeli settlers who are guilty of violence against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank." The statement read that the 28 people will be banned from entering French territory and did not mention any financial measures. The Finance Ministry department dealing with international sanctions confirmed to Al-Monitor that no freeze of assets was included in the sanctions.
Considering their nationalistic ideologies, in all likelihood the settlers in question have no assets in France and travel abroad very rarely, if at all. As such, the measures are essentially political, without any concrete consequences.
Exceptional measures
