France is planning to recognize a Palestinian state within months and could make the move at a UN conference in New York in June on settling the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday, April 9, according to Le Monde.

"We must move toward recognition, and we will do so in the coming months," Macron, who this week visited Egypt, told France 5 television channel. "Our aim is to chair this conference with Saudi Arabia in June, where we could finalize this movement of mutual recognition (of a Palestinian state) by several parties," he added.

"I will do it (...) because I believe that at some point it will be right and because I also want to participate in a collective dynamic, which must also allow all those who defend Palestine to recognize Israel in turn, which many of them do not do," he said.

Such recognition would allow France "to be clear in our fight against those who deny Israel's right to exist – which is the case with Iran – and to commit ourselves to collective security in the region," Macron added.

France's recognition of Palestinian statehood "would be a step in the right direction in line with safeguarding the rights of the Palestinian people and the two-state solution," Palestinian Foreign Affairs Minister Varsen Aghabekian Shahin told Agence France-Presse on Wednesday.

Currently, 147 of the 193 UN member states recognize the state of Palestine. Last May, Spain, Ireland, and Norway joined the list, bringing the total number of EU countries granting recognition to 10. Others are Bulgaria, Cyprus, Malta, Hungary, Poland, Sweden, and Romania.