France “has decided to take national measures against certain extremist Israeli settlers,” French diplomatic chief Catherine Colonna told the press on Tuesday.
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“I saw with my own eyes the violence of some extremist settlers. This is unacceptable,” Ms. Colonna said as she returned from a trip to Israel, the Palestinian territories and Lebanon.
“France has decided to take national measures against some of these extremist settlers, identified as such based on documented information,” she added.
Paris had already indicated in early December that it was considering sanctions such as blocking French territories and freezing the assets of certain settlers, and called for such measures to be taken at the European level.
The United States, for its part, imposed sanctions on dozens of settlers in early December who are now banned from entering American territory.
Settler violence has increased since the bloody attacks by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Israel on October 7, which killed 1,200 people and took about 250 hostage.
According to Palestinian health authorities, more than 290 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since the war began.