France has banned Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich from entering the country, the French foreign minister said, as part of coordinated sanctions with other countries over settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
France's sanctions were in coordination with Britain, Canada, Australia, Norway and New Zealand, targeting "those responsible for the escalation of settlement activity and violence in the West Bank", French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Tuesday.
He said Smotrich "actively promotes the annexation of the West Bank, which he openly claims, the creation of new settlements in the West Bank, the re-colonisation of Gaza, the economic collapse of the Palestinian Authority and its harmful consequences for the Palestinian population".
"This is a policy that the overwhelming majority of the international community, firmly committed to the two-state solution, cannot accept," Barrot wrote on X.
Smotrich is the second member of the Israeli government to be forbidden from entering France in recent months, after National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir was barred on May 23 for mocking activists detained and mistreated by Israeli soldiers from a Gaza-bound flotilla carrying aid for the Palestinian territory.
France also banned four leaders of settler organisations and 21 violent illegal Israeli settlers.
'Scant accountability'
Norway said it would adopt the same sanctions as those announced by the European Union on May 28, as well as impose an entry ban targeting "20 violent settlers", without naming them.
Along with sanctions against "networks financing and enabling settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank", the United Kingdom also urged British businesses and citizens to refrain from conducting financial activities in Israeli settlements deemed illegal under international law.
"We believe that violent settler groups should not be profiting from the land that they have seized from Palestinians," Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper told parliament.
The Israeli "government has condemned some settler violence, but that rings hollow when there is scant accountability", she added.
Ben-Gvir and Smotrich were sanctioned by five countries last year over allegations of inciting violence against Palestinians, while Spain, Slovenia and most recently Ireland have also imposed bans on the ministers.
