The Israeli Defense Ministry says Eurosatory blocked displays of defensive systems despite compliance with French restrictions, while offensive weapons remained on show.
Management at the June 15-19 Eurosatory land and air-land defense exhibition in Paris boarded up Israeli pavilions even though they adhered to organizers’ discriminatory restrictions, Israel’s Defense Ministry said on Monday.
“This is a cynical, discriminatory, and unsurprising move aimed at shutting Israeli technology out of an international exhibition, technology whose quality is proven daily across the Middle East,” the ministry’s spokesperson said.
Two of the pavilions belonged to Controp, a producer of electro-optical, precision motion control systems for surveillance, defense, para-military and homeland security missions, and to Smart Shooter, which developed state-of-the-art fire control systems for small arms that significantly increase weapon accuracy, especially against attack drones.
The Controp team wrote on the walled off pavilion that their products were effective against Iranian ballistic missiles but “lost against French short sight[ed]ness.”
The pavilions carried only defensive equipment in obedience to “the French government’s outrageous demands,” the Israeli Defense Ministry spokesperson said, but were boarded off anyway.
Amichai Chikli, Israel’s minister for Diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism, wrote on X in French: “You may cravenly put up all the boards in the world to hide the pavilions of the world’s most innovative companies, but it will not weaken them. It will strengthen them. This cowardice is the hallmark of [President] Emmanuel Macron and [Foreign Minister] Jean-Noel Barrot, who rank among the weakest leaders France has ever had.”
France has barred Israeli defense producers at weapons exhibitions in its territory after Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led terrorists invaded Israel, killing some 1,200 people, and prompted an Israeli counteroffensive in Gaza.
The French organizers of Eurosatory 2024, an international defense show held every two years near Paris, walled off Israeli pavilions on the claim that they carried offensive weapons. The show featured many offensive weapons, including the Finnish Sako TRG 62 A1 sniper rifle and Ukrainian attack drones.