A record number of visitors and a fuss about Israeli presence at Parisian Aviation Show

Is the Paris Airshow the place for inspiring demonstrations, lucrative deals and cross-pollination between handsome heads and smart start-ups from the air and space sector from all over the world? Or is it a despicable ‘genocides salon’? The opinions about the International aviation show From Paris, which takes place this week in the suburb of Le Bourget, vary mildly.

At first glance he is primarily the first. The biennial stock exchange takes place on a seventy hectare site with 2,500 stands from 48 countries: the European space group ESA is, like aircraft builders Boeing and Airbus, the French army and arms manufacturers as Thales. They show their planes, helicopters, drones, rockets, lunar carts and radars. Soldiers walk around, diplomats, recruiters and since Friday also countless students, aircraft fans and other civilians. Occasionally a fighter plane shoots over the crowd or a parachutist floats by.

President Emmanuel Macron visited Friday Le Salon du Bourgetas the stock market is popularly called. After arriving with a military transport plane, he praised the stock market as the “most important meeting place” for the global aviation industry. The president felt “great pride” and spoke of an “immense success” because more than three hundred thousand people came to the stock exchange this year: a record and the result of the growth of aviation, space and defense sectors and the increased geopolitical instability. The organization itself also does not shy away from big words: it speaks of a place “where innovation takes a flight, dreams come true and the future takes shape”.

Criticism from Amnesty

It is in stark contrast to the term that Amnesty International uses: the human rights organization has renamed the exhibition to ‘Genocides Salon’. This is because Israeli companies were invited that sell weapons that may be used in the destruction of Gaza. Amnesty has to reinforce his criticism a fake version Made from the Aviation Fair site on which “the back of the decor” is shown. There you will be confronted with figures about the massacre in Gaza: more than 54,000 deaths, including more than 15,000 children. In a fictional boutique, products are offered as a doll With “a few traces of blood that can be brushed away”.

There is little to notice of this criticism on Friday: visitors marvel at drones flying past and steps with a big smile in the cockpit chair of a fighter plane. Some have taken camping chairs to be able to go to the air all day.

The only signal that leads to the Israeli presence to discomfort can be found in the hall where the Israeli companies were drawn up – right next to ally America. Where it is teeming with people elsewhere, it is calm here with a few armed police officers. The stands are protected from the public with large canvases.

The canvases were hung on the first day of the stock market to withdraw the Israeli stands: the government decided at the last minute that no attack weapons were allowed to be shown at the stands in Le Bourget. Some Israeli defense companies wanted that and when they refused to remove the weapons, their stands were closed. That of the Israeli Ministry of Defense is also closed. If you look through the canvases, you will see a number of rockets.

Zoom in

With the closure, the Amnesty government and local left -wing politicians met who wanted all Israeli weapon producers to be banned in Le Bourget. The socialist chairman of the Stéphane Troussel department even has protest refused President Emmanuel Macron prior to his visit, as the tradition is, because “you can’t pretend to be on the one hand for human rights, and on the other hand roll out the red walking for a state being investigated for genocidal risks.”

But the closure of the stands is not enough for them. The critics seize the stock market to express broader criticism of Israel and the Israel policy of France. Although Macron is speaking again and Fermer against the devastating war policy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, France remains according to research NGOs Sell ​​military equipment to the country. The French government says that only things are sold to Israel that can be used for defensive purposes, but transaction overviews show that weapons are also sold.

Big smile

Macron did not want to pay too much attention to the issue on Friday. Sources in the Élysée are in advance about the fuss around the Israeli presence. In conversation with journalists, Macron Netanyahu, as more often, calls for a ceasefire and the resumption of humanitarian aid, but he does not go into the issue deeper. And other difficult questions, such as the shelling between Israel and Iran, also get a short answer. The message seems: the president is in Le Bourget to put France and the French companies in the spotlight, not to make geopolitics.

Visitors seem to like that. The closed Israeli stands occasionally involves a curious visitor who has heard of the closure, which leads to various reactions. A Spaniard shows with a big smile via Facetime to a neighbor that the weapon manufacturers have been hidden from view. A group of French people in their twenties notes that “for obvious reasons” the Israeli arms manufacturers do not deserve a place. A French man of middle age, however, calls on a peer with a keppeltje that the closure is ‘a shame’. “A sign of total submission,” he calls through space. Other visitors look up and then continue their way.

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