Politics cloud annual Israel-France business gathering

French business and industrial players have generally not been the leaders of the pack when it comes to establishing a presence in Israel or signing new contracts for goods and services there. They have always been there, yes, but far behind Britain and Germany, and others. Why ? For a good number of reasons, and not only linked to politics, the president of the Chambre de Commerce France-Israel (the CCFI), Henri Cukierman, has been explaining to me for a good number of years, often at annual CCFI dinners.

And so this year, it was important for the CCFI to host as guest speaker the head of state-run French energy giant EDF, a leading foreign business partner with Israel and the number one renewable (solar) energy producer there.

Some context perhaps: In recent years, new Israel-France relations in high tech fields, led by cybersecurity, were on the upswing, bringing together Israeli startups and French corporate giants, proof in certain cases of the success of annual CCFI cybersecurity forums here in Paris.

That was before the barbaric, Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023 and the disastrous war that has followed in Gaza, pitting radical Islamic terrorists against a right-wing Netanyahu-led coalition government complete with extremist messianic ministers, determined to wipe out by force the Islamic dictatorship ruling the territory since 2007.

But the most important point here is not to analyze this war, but to note that since the ceasefire forced on both sides by the Trump administration in Washington, Israel has registered a number of highly-publicized political and business success stories, but not with France.

Opening the recent 33rd annual CCFI dinner, Henri Cukierman told almost 300 guests gathered in the plush Pré Catelan restaurant nestled among tall trees in the Bois de Boulogne park, “Business with France has slowed down and is less visible, but it continues. And this current situation may be a problem for France, but not for Israel, given the most recent successes.”

Those success stories include the purchase by Google of the Wiz cybersecurity firm for a mere $32 billion, construction by US chip giant Nvidia of a massive R&D campus near Yokne’am in the north, creating more than 5,000 new jobs (“Globes”, July 5, 2025), Germany signing with Israel Aerospace Industries to purchase more Arrow 3 interceptors, and high-level talks with India to step up commercial exchanges significantly.

However, at the same time, as much of the death and destruction in Gaza has been filmed and regularly broadcasted on television and social media worldwide, though much less so on French and Israeli TV (but that is another story), the image of the government and people of Israel has been crushed, sometimes by legitimate criticism, often by hate-filled emotion. This has longtime key Francophone figure in Israel, Dan Catarivas, worried. Now president of the Israel Federation of Bi-National Chambers of Commerce, he told the gathering, “This war has cost Israel some $90 billion. It has been a waste. And calls to boycott Israel have gone mainstream.” There was little reaction in the room.

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France’s state-run electricity and energy giant, EDF, has been working in Israel for 15 years, and through its subsidiary, EDF Power Solutions-Israel, is the leading producer of solar energy there.

The French company powering Israel

EDF CEO Bernard Fontana told the gathering that EDF was working to bring the percentage of Israel’s total power consumption that is produced from renewable solar energy up to 30% by the year 2030. “Israel for us is a laboratory of innovation, a human and industrial adventure,” he said.

Fontana then quoted Israel’s founding father, David Ben Gurion, saying, “he (or she) who does not believe in miracles is not a realist.”

The EDF CEO told “Globes” that he had been to Israel several times, but not to the 100-hectare Timna power plant next to the historically significant copper mine in the southern Arava desert, exploited first by the Egyptians and then perhaps by a certain King Solomon.

Back in 2007, I wrote an article for the JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency) about a Mexican industrial group, AHMSA, that was about to launch copper mining operations at the site but was facing opposition from the regional council over major environmental risks. To extract the copper from the rock, engineers use sulfuric acid, a major source of pollution. In 2009, after spending more than $60 million on the site, AHMSA shut down operations when the Israeli government canceled its multi-million dollar participation.

Ayalon Vaniche, the head of the local subsidiary EDF Power Solutions-Israel happened to be dining at the Pré Catelan that evening, and the details he shared with me would have greatly interested dinner guests.

The EDF subsidiary runs 46 power plants in Israel, all solar, including three floating plants which are not offshore, as one might think, but rather on inland bodies of water such as fish ponds. It won the tender issued in 2016 by the Israel Land Administration for the 100-hectare Timna site, in operation since 2021 with more than 150,000 solar panels.

“There is no ideological opposition in Israel to building renewable energy plants, as there is in France,” Vaniche explained. “In Israel, solar plants are most often built on agricultural land, belonging to kibbutzim or moshavim. Timna is an exception, as the land plot tendered by the State was unsuitable for agriculture.”

He continued that one part of the Timna site was made up of “spectacular desert geological formations,” while another part was “land that was highly polluted by runoff from the Mexican mining operations.”

Vaniche noted that solar-produced electricity in Israel is half the price of such electricity produced in France.

Bilateral awards

Then came the awards ceremony, in which five French or Israeli firms receive trophies for their bilateral work, be it industrial, goods and services, or academic accords. This is always a lively affair, well appreciated by the mostly French guests, who are often involved in work with Israel in corporate posts, in small business mode and as individuals. The winners were:

1. The Weizmann Institute – France: responsible for strengthening cooperation between the Institute in Israel and prestigious French scientific centers such as the L’ École polytechnique, the CNRS research center, the Curie cancer Institute and more, represented by Sidney Toledano, President, and David Weizmann, general director. 2. Vinci Technologies: working for 15 years in Israel, furnishing thin layer systems for semiconductors and photovoltaic cells to Israeli universities, represented by Renaud Presberg, president. 3. El Al: offering the best airline security in times of war, represented by Oranit Beit Halamy. This choice raised a few eyebrows, as stories of summertime high prices circulated from table to table. 4.Ben Gurion University of the Negev: maintaining more than 40 partnerships with French universities and research centers…a world leader in cybersecurity and arid-region agriculture. Represented by David Hozé, president, and Eric Danon, honorary president. 5. Arthur Essebag: a major figure promoting and strengthening French-Israeli bilateral relations and partnerships. He drew laughter and applause when he called on the El Al director to lower round trip fares between France and Israel, which exploded this past summer, from around 700 euros to more than 1500 euros.

Then I ran into CCFI head Henri Cukierman making the rounds of tables, greeting business leaders and friends. “You know, Dan Catarivas does have a good point about Israel’s image,” he told me. “Even though this has not been the strategy of the Israeli army, it is a gift for anti-Israeli propaganda to have a minister say that starving two million people in Gaza could be justified and moral.”

He said that the French problem with Israel was not on the business level, but in the political arena. For example, at the international Paris air show, black walls were placed around the Israeli stands of Elbit, IAI and Rafael. As a result, people had difficulty entering the stands. “Unlike the good relations it has with other countries, France’s politics with Israel are running at two kilometers an hour,” Cukierman commented. “And although France’s political relations with Israel are now at a low point, French companies still have a good image of the innovative characteristics of their Israeli counterparts.”

Designing a synagogue in Or Akiva

And how did the guests feel? 60-something architect Pascal Hofstein has attended this dinner regularly. He has taught at Colombia University in New York, and so his English is fluent, though even after many trips to Israel, his Hebrew is not.

“I meet good people at this dinner, and I’d say that this year, half the people I spoke with support this Bibi government, and half do not,” he told “Globes.” “Myself, I was a big supporter of Yitzhak Rabin. Back then you could be a Zionist and leftist. Today, I don’t think you can. And anti-Zionist leftists in France and in the States have often become antisemitic.

“With this war and declarations by certain Israeli ministers, and the footage from Gaza, the country does have a major image problem. Not living in Israel, we don’t always know the politics there. But many Jews here think they know everything, and often they support this Netanyahu government. And what’s more, they are big Trump supporters because he has been good for Israel, bringing home the hostages especially, but they don’t know what he is doing to the United States.”

Architect Hofstein had never worked in Israel, but recently he signed a contract to build a community center and synagogue for some 300 French-speaking residents of Or-Akiva. “We are still in the design phase, and construction should begin in a year,” he told Globes. “This is my first project in Israel, and I am thrilled about it.”

Generally speaking, it is difficult to remove politics from business, and vice versa, especially in Israel. But this synagogue-community center construction project is proof that it is possible.

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on November 27, 2025.

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2025.