French legislators vote in favour of recognising Palestinian state

The highly symbolic vote in the lower house National Assembly is not binding on French government policy but is likely to spark fury in Israel, whose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned it would be a "grave mistake".

MPs voted 339 to 151 in favour of a motion that invites Paris to recognise the state of Palestine "as an instrument to gain a definitive resolution of the conflict."

Palestinians are seeking to achieve statehood in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank with east Jerusalem as the capital. With little progress on reaching a settlement, they have been lobbying foreign powers for international recognition.

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