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France barred Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich from entering the country Tuesday as part of coordinated sanctions targeting people accused of intensifying settlement expansion and violence in the occupied West Bank.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said France also imposed entry bans on four leaders of settler organizations and 21 settlers described as violent.
The measures were announced alongside Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Norway.
“With our British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and Norwegian partners, we are today imposing new sanctions against those responsible for intensifying colonization and violence in the West Bank,” Barrot said on X.
At the national level, France banned Smotrich, the four settler organization leaders and the 21 settlers from French territory, he added.
Barrot accused Smotrich of actively promoting the annexation of the occupied West Bank, the construction of new settlements, the reestablishment of Israeli settlements in Gaza and measures that could cause the Palestinian Authority’s economic collapse.
He said those policies had damaging consequences for the Palestinian population.
“This is a policy that the overwhelming majority of the international community cannot accept, firmly committed to the two-state solution,” Barrot said.
Smotrich leads the far-right Religious Zionist party and serves as a key member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition.
The French sanctions were aimed at people Paris said were responsible for the intensification of settlement activity and violence in the occupied West Bank.
Smotrich is the second Israeli minister barred from France in recent months.
France banned Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir last month after he mocked bound activists detained by Israeli soldiers aboard an aid flotilla bound for Gaza.
Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are both central members of Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition government.
Ireland also barred the two Israeli ministers from entering its territory in recent days.
Britain imposed bans on Smotrich and Ben-Gvir in June last year, followed by measures from other countries, including Spain and Slovenia.
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