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    Palestinian Authority President Says Hamas Must Exit Gaza

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    Mahmoud Abbas gave assurances to President Emmanuel Macron of France, who has set conditions for possible recognition of a Palestinian state at a U.N. conference next week.Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, has called for Hamas to “hand over its weapons,” immediately free all hostages and cease ruling Gaza, the French presidency said on Tuesday after receiving a letter from him.The letter was addressed to President Emmanuel Macron of France and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, who will jointly chair a U.N. conference in New York next week to explore the creation of a Palestinian state. Mr. Macron has set a number of conditions for the possible French recognition of such a state at that meeting, including the disarmament of Hamas.“Hamas will no longer rule Gaza and must hand over its weapons and military capabilities to the Palestinian security forces,” Mr. Abbas said in the letter, according to a statement from the Élysée Palace. He added that the Palestinian forces would oversee the removal of Hamas with Arab and international support, an undertaking that is certain to provoke skepticism in Israel, and probably also in Washington.“Hamas must immediately release all hostages and captives,” the letter said, reiterating a demand that Mr. Abbas has made before.A bitter feud has divided Mr. Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the West Bank, and Hamas in Gaza for many years. The rival factions in the two Palestinian territories have defied several attempts at reconciliation, something that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has seized on to dismiss a two-state solution.Mr. Abbas condemned the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people in some of the strongest terms that he has used, calling it “unacceptable and reprehensible.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      European Leaders Try to Recalibrate After Trump Sides With Russia on Ukraine

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      The American president’s latest remarks embracing Vladimir Putin’s narrative that Ukraine is to blame for the war have compounded the sense of alarm among traditional allies.President Emmanuel Macron of France called a second emergency meeting of European allies on Wednesday seeking to recalibrate relations with the United States as President Trump upends international politics by rapidly changing American alliances.Mr. Macron had already assembled a dozen European leaders in Paris on Monday after Mr. Trump and his new team angered and confused America’s traditional allies by suggesting that the United States would rapidly retreat from its security role in Europe and planned to proceed with peace talks with Russia — without Europe or Ukraine at the table.Mr. Trump’s remarks late on Tuesday, when he sided fully with Russia’s narrative blaming Ukraine for the war, have now fortified the impression that the United States is prepared to abandon its role as a European ally and switch sides to embrace President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.It was a complete reversal of historic alliances that left many in Europe stunned and fearful.“What’s happening is very bad. It’s a reversal of the state of the world since 1945,” Jean- Yves Le Drian, a former French foreign minister, said on French radio Wednesday morning.“It’s our security he’s putting at risk,” he said, referring to President Trump. “We must wake up.”Fear that Mr. Trump is ready to abandon Ukraine and has accepted Russian talking points has been particularly acute in Eastern and Central Europe, where memories are long and bitter of the West’s efforts to appease Hitler in Munich in 1938 and its assent to Stalin’s demands at the Yalta Conference in 1945 for a Europe cleaved in two.“Even Poland’s betrayal in Yalta lasted longer than Ukraine’s betrayal in Riyadh,” Jaroslaw Walesa, a Polish lawmaker and the son of Poland’s anti-Communist Solidarity trade union leader, Lech Walesa, said Wednesday on social media, referring to the American-Russian talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      French-American Friendship in Four Courses

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      Under Emmanuel Macron, “culinary diplomacy” is back on the menu, with a lavish dinner fortifying an old alliance at a tense historical moment.Beneath the crystal chandeliers of the gilded reception hall of the Élysée Palace, opened in 1889 with a party for 8,000 people, President Emmanuel Macron of France hosted President Biden on Saturday night at a state dinner intended to celebrate a very old alliance and demonstrate that the bond is greater than its intermittent frictions.Mr. Biden, addressing the French leader as “Emmanuel,” rose from a long table adorned with a bouquet of pink peonies and roses to say that “France was our first ally, and that is not insignificant.” He cited a book titled “The Pocket Guide to France” that he said was distributed to the American forces who, eight decades ago, fought their way up the Normandy bluffs through a hail of Nazi gunfire to wrest Europe from tyranny.“No bragging,” Mr. Biden quoted the guide as saying, “the French don’t like that!” The book urged U.S. solders to be generous — “it won’t hurt you” — and said the French “happen to speak democracy in a different language, but we are all in the same boat.”That “same boat” of 1944 has repeatedly been invoked during Mr. Biden’s five-day visit to France as still existing today in the form of joint French and U.S. support for Ukraine in a battle against Russia defined as pivotal for the defense of European liberty. “We stand together when the going gets tough,” Mr. Biden said.The going was scarcely that at a sumptuous dinner served at tables set between the fluted columns of a room conceived a century after the French Revolution to project the glory of the Republic.Beneath golden caryatids and a painted ceiling medallion reading “The Republic safeguarding peace,” battalions of liveried waiters in white bow ties, bearing silver trays, served with impeccable precision a four-course meal accompanied by champagne and a 2006 Château Margaux that had taken 18 years to achieve perfection.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More