00:00Well, the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, is in Paris today where he is meeting with Emmanuel Macron.
00:06The visit comes as France seeks to reclaim its influence in the Middle East peace process and remind Washington that diplomacy does not begin and end at the White House.
00:15It also comes at a time when the month old ceasefire remains fragile and as Donald Trump's 20-point peace plan faces some daunting challenges ahead.
00:23Our international affairs commentator, Douglas Herbert, has been taking a closer look at what's at stake here.
00:28Doug, what's France hoping to achieve with this visit by the Palestinian Authority leader who is actually quite unpopular at home?
00:35Deeply unpopular. Let's begin with whom Emmanuel Macron is receiving today.
00:41It's not just the president of the Palestinian Authority.
00:44It is, as the French presidential communique, the statement phrased it, he's welcoming the president of the state of Palestine.
00:51Let us not forget that France became the latest of many nations in the West and beyond to officially, to formally recognize Palestinian sovereignty back at the UN General Assembly in late September.
01:05And following that, they called to end the war in Gaza.
01:08They also called for an end to the Israeli expansion of settlements in the West Bank, all part and parcel of a sort of French vision of what should happen.
01:16Now, let's fast forward from September to now. We right now have a peace plan which is in a very fragile state of being.
01:23You just alluded to that. What I mean by that is since this ceasefire a month ago came into force, it's been tested repeatedly by both Israeli strikes in Gaza and allegations of Palestinian attacks on Israeli soldiers.
01:39So we're at really the baby steps of this 20-point peace plan.
01:44And when you say daunting challenges ahead, almost the entire, it's the tip of the iceberg, almost everything remains to be done.
01:50What Macron is hoping to do at this meeting is, A, to do what he's been trying to do all along, is to reassert France's voice, to claim, if you will, reclaim France's influence in this process.
02:01Because France and much of Europe, let's face it, have been all but marginalized by the U.S.'s role.
02:07The U.S. calls the shots. Donald Trump calls the shots.
02:10But at the same time, remember, he's receiving a 90-year-old, deeply unpopular Palestinian authority leader, Mahmoud Abbas.
02:16France has no illusions about the prospects of Abbas perhaps presiding over a future Palestinian authority.
02:23It could happen, might not.
02:25He's really going to be pressing Abbas to go ahead and press through with those reforms.
02:29France wants to put forward its vision, which is not explicit in the peace plan, that you've got to keep a hard eye on a role for the Palestinian authority that is a voice for all Palestinians in a future Palestinian entity.
02:42That's given short shrift in the 20-point plan.
02:45You have to make sure humanitarian aid comes through.
02:48And you have to set the conditions, sort of an even-handed sort of set of conditions, that you can have a lasting and durable peace in the Middle East.
02:56These are things that under Donald Trump's 20-point peace plan, as France sees it, France has a big role to play in keeping those elements front and center on the agenda.
03:07That's what he's going to be talking about with Abbas, but mainly pressing him, make those reforms.
03:11You want the Palestinian authority to have a role in the future Gaza?
03:14You need to reform it now, whether or not he's at the head of it.
03:17But France isn't explicitly going to tell him to step down.
03:19How much is Donald Trump going to be following these talks?
03:22And can Emmanuel Macron get his message across to him?
03:24Yeah, it's interesting.
03:25I was thinking, does Trump, like, actually even know?
03:28I mean, does he have an advisor who says, oh, by the way, you know, Mr. President, today you have Abbas is in Paris meeting with Macron.
03:34If it registers at all on Donald Trump's radar, and I'm not saying it isn't, I don't think this is Donald Trump's preoccupation.
03:41I said before that Trump calls the shots.
03:42This has been mainly, this 20-point peace plan is more a beast of the U.S. and Israel.
03:48It is more their vision of what a future Gaza should look like than a vision that has included a Palestinian voice.
03:55Not because I'm saying it, but because the Palestinians themselves and the reason for this visit is because they're searching for a voice.
04:01They're trying to get a word in, edgewise, in this peace process.
04:04So Donald Trump has really much more talked about this so-called board of peace in a transitional phase, presiding over a technocratical body, a committee to oversee the future governance of Gaza.
04:15He hasn't talked much about, if at all, about what that Gaza will look like and whether a Palestinian Authority will be at the head of it.
04:22We know the U.S. is opposed to a two-state solution.
04:24So there's a lot at which France and the U.S. are really not just at loggerheads.
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