France's ambassador to Israel Frédéric Journès said on the Haaretz Podcast that any postwar Gaza plan must acknowledge that completely disarming and ridding the Strip of Hamas militia members is not an achievable goal.

"You're not going to eliminate all of those people, so you basically need to find them a job in local police, find them a little job in society and de-radicalize them to the greatest extent possible," he contended.

This is possible, he said, because over the course of the war, Israel "got rid of the leadership" and Hamas "has almost no leaders."

Journès said that from what he has observed, "the Egyptians are working like crazy on that. That's what we know from them and from the Americans." Pointing to previous examples from Lebanon and Algeria, he said the process "can work."

Journès, who has been France's envoy to Israel since July 2023, sat down for a wide-ranging interview with host Allison Kaplan Sommer and Haaretz diplomatic correspondent Liza Rozovsky, discussing Gaza, Lebanon, Iran and antisemitism in France. The ambassador also explains why he believes the four countries strengthened by the past two years of war are Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt.

In the discussion, Journès declared that despite the open confrontation between President Emanuel Macron and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the French-Saudi initiative for Palestinian statehood at the UN, France "doesn't feel we are out of the game," pointing to the deployment of French forces in the region and its active role in monitoring Iran's nuclear program.

Pressed on the podcast as to whether he supports renewing strikes on Iran aimed at its ballistic missile program, which Israel reportedly desires, Journès replied, "I'm not saying that. I will see what will happen."