France's town halls told to remove Palestinian flags flown to mark Macron's recognition

As French President Emmanuel Macron recognised Palestine's statehood earlier this week, 86 town halls across France flew the Palestinian flag in celebration - defying instructions by Macron's interior ministry not to do so.

By Wednesday, some had taken the flag down after regional authorities initiated legal proceedings - a move which some mayors said undermined the message of solidarity Macron sought to make with his largely symbolic recognition.

"For me it's a complete misunderstanding," Raphael Adam, mayor of Nanterre outside Paris, told Reuters. "You can't have a government asking its representatives to oppose raising a flag at the same time it's recognising the state."

The city raised the flag in a ceremony on Monday but a day later, the Nanterre administrative court ruled it should be removed after the city defied an order by the regional representative to take it down.

Under French law, public buildings cannot be used as platforms for expressing political, religious or philosophical opinions.

"When we raised a Ukrainian flag, no one told us anything!" said Gilles Poux, mayor of La Courneuve, northeast of Paris, who planned to take down the flag late on Tuesday after his administration was fined for flying one earlier this year.

"Speaking of neutrality is hypocritical. Liberty, equality, fraternity: there's nothing neutral about these values," he said.