Annual Franco-Israeli business dinner held in Paris as war rages in Israel and Gaza
This annual gathering of bilateral shining business figures, certain possible rising stars from both France and Israel, and tables of longtime French corporate backers (with wives and husbands) is normally not in itself newsworthy.
But Henri Cukierman, president of host the Chambre de Commerce France Israel (CCFI), answered from the get-go the unasked question of the evening: why is this dinner different from all other dinners?
“The 1,400 Israelis killed in the October 7 attack equal 78 Bataclans and 18 September 11s,” he said to open the evening, referring to the deadly series of attacks in Paris by French Islamic radicals in 2017 and the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York in 2001. “It is going to be a long war,” he told attendees, adding “Iran must not become a nuclear power.”
Cukierman then led a minute of silence in the dining room of the opulent Pré Catelan House in the Bois de Bologne. He proceeded to introduce guest speaker Patrick Pouyanné, CEO of TotalEnergies, the sixth largest energy group in the world.
Cukierman told me later that the Israeli business figures invited, some who come every year, were no-shows. “They all canceled after October 7 ,” he said, noting that the number of French corporate tables remained the same, sixteen, but that “20% more French individuals registered to attend following the Hamas attack,” for a total of some 300 guests.
For him, the message was clear. “It is not exactly business as usual, but let’s say that people are adapting to make it look like business as usual. In other words, the show goes on. The store must stay open.”
At the podium, Total CEO Pouyanné said, “We can only be with Israel.” Total is active in the region, with off-shore oil rigs operating off the coasts of Israel and Lebanon. He commented that, even with all the renewable energy sources in the world, the demand and need for classic oil and carbon-based energy was greater than ever. Pouyanné was not interested in speaking with “Globes”.
More on the bilateral business scene in a minute.
During the cocktail hour before dinner, I was introduced to two non-business Franco-Israelis by another rare journalist present, I24 News Paris correspondent Hélène Corbie. She had just interviewed Ariane Tamir. Why? Because Ariane has for years visited her cousins, the Haran and Kipnis families, on Kibbutz Be’eri, five kilometers east of Gaza. Hamas took away her entire extended family there, killing three of them and holding seven others hostage.
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She has had no news of them since that all-round vicious day.
“You ask me, have I cried for them? No, since they were taken, I have not cried. I cannot,” she tells me. “You know, I understand the anger of the Palestinians, but I cannot understand how they express it.”
I look at Ariane Tamir, short grey hair, early 70s, a kindly, unsmiling face, soft-spoken even when I feel the anger coming from her.
The Hamas terrorist attackers were reportedly all high on Captagon, the powerful amphetamine made infamous by Da-esh in Iraq and Syria, manufactured now by higher-ups in Damascus, that neutralizes all emotion.
Packets of pills were found in their pockets, along with marching orders. “They knew exactly what they were doing and whom they were doing it to,” Ariane Tamir says. “My cousins went up to Tel Aviv every weekend to demonstrate against the Netanyahu government. The Hamas targeted people who want peace with the Palestinians.”
A couple of days later, Ariane did cry briefly, very briefly, upon learning that another body, that of her cousin Lilach Lea Kipnis, age 60, had been identified.
But now we stand together in the busy dining room, as relaxed business executives and their wives and husbands make the rounds of tables and begin digesting the fish main course to make room for a chocolate cake desert. “This is, after all, a business gathering,” she tells me.
Awards were handed out by CCFI vice-president André Maarek to the following French firms:
Artelia, for work on the Tel Aviv regional metro lines.
Bersay, for legal work with Israeli companies in France.
Carrefour, for the opening of 50 retail outlets in Israel.
EDF renewables, for operating 27 solar energy installations.
Mérieux NutriSciences, for entering the food production quality, security and laboratory fields.
And yet France still lags far behind Great Britain and Germany in business relations with Israel, proof that having Europe’s largest Jewish population means little to nothing.
“France remains eleventh or thirteenth in terms of countries working in or with Israel,” CCFI President Cukierman told me. “We seem to do better with developing world countries than with those of the first world. The exception is the field of cybersecurity.” He has been telling me this for years. The CCFI organizes a successful annual cybersecurity forum.
Later on, I stepped out for a cigarette with the I 24 News journalist, and when we returned to the dining hall, it was empty.
And the war continues. Hamas has released several hostages, but more than 200, including Ariane Tamir’s family from Be’eri, remain captive in Gaza. She explained to me that their grandparents had come to Ottoman Empire Palestine in 1905 from Ukraine. Her grandmother, Chana Orloff, went to Paris to study in 1910 and became a well-known sculptor here. A small museum in Paris houses her work. Ariane moved to Israel as a young adult a week before the 1973 Kippur War, and divides her time with husband Amnon between Tel Aviv and Paris.
Her cousin Shoshan Haran, whose parents were among the founders of Kibbutz Be’eri in 1946, developed a successful agriculture seed company, Hazera Genetics, bought by French giant Vilmorin years ago. She also created an agriculture NGO called “Fair Planet”, sending seeds to poor farmers mostly in Ethiopia and Tanzania. Shoshan is now a captive in Gaza; her husband Avshalom is among the dead.
Ariane and Amnon Tamir were brought to the CCFI dinner by Daniel Rouach, who heads the Tel Aviv-based Israel-France Chamber of Commerce, and publishes the IsraelValley website, an active business news source. “The idea was to help them make important business and media contacts here,” he said, “to publicize the hostage situation, and get French diplomacy involved. And it seems to be working.”
It is working, for what it is worth. Rouach helped organized a gathering at the Assemblée Nationale here, sponsored by morning Jewish Radio J. Tamir told her story to a crowd of French political figures, including former President François Holland, ministers, deputies, and speaker of the house Yael Braun-Pivet, who had just returned from Israel, and a collection of guests from the Jewish community.
Ariane Tamir explained to all the family situation at Be’eri, saying simply, “I ask you to help us save the hostages. The tears will be for later.”
She has since appeared on all major French television networks.
She was followed at the podium by a young woman from the southern French city of Montpellier, Chloé Ghnassia. “My little brother Valentin, an IDF lone soldier, was killed fighting the Hamas at Be’eri,” she told the gathering, lips trembling. “He was 22 and had a week left in his army service before returning to France.”
She was met by a standing ovation. The emotion was intense. Her brother and other soldiers in his unit had been flown by helicopter to Be’eri from their base at the Dead Sea. The question Israelis are asking, why were there so few soldiers present at the Gaza border, was not raised at this gathering, nor were other political debates raging in Israel. Nor was the death toll in Gaza mentioned, now over 6000, according to Hamas officials.
French President Emmanuel Macron was meeting that day with Benjamin Netanyahu and with Mahmoud Abbas, the only western leader to speak with the head of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. He was criticized by some in the Jewish community here for doing so.
Did Tamir notice that the only non-political guests present at the National Assembly appeared to be from the Jewish community. And apparently, not one French Arab or Black person of note was invited, or in any case, none were present. At the same time, articles in “Globes”, “Haaretz” and other Israeli news outlets have described Israeli Arabs expressing outrage over the Hamas massacres and joining hands with Israeli Jews. These articles are generally not read in France, which has the largest Jewish and Muslim communities in Europe.
“No, I didn’t notice this,” she said. “I simply gave my message.” But then came a flow of harsh words, repeated by other Israelis. “This Israeli government is incompetent, with no apparent strategy in Gaza,” she told me, “and now it is losing the war of communications against Hamas. I have seen the images from Gaza. But when this war is over, there will be investigations in Israel as to what happened. Right now, this is about frustration and anger. But criticism of this government will be expressed. And we will return to critical thinking.”
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on October 26, 2023.
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2023.
