During a press conference held on Monday, January 26, French collectives and organizations from the culture, research and higher education sectors condemned the French government’s suspension of eligibility for artists and scientists from Gaza in the Pause program.
Supervised by four government ministries, the program allows foreign artists and scientists in danger to be hosted in France through joint funding: 60% from the state and 40% from host organizations, for a renewable one-year period.
Since Israel launched its devastating offensive against the Palestinian enclave in response to the massacres carried out by Hamas on October 7, 2023, 41 awardees from Gaza have been evacuated from Gaza or Egypt, most recently on July 11, 2025. Evacuations were suspended by France in August 2025 following antisemitic remarks made by a Gazan student, Nour Attaalah, who was not a Pause awardee. Host organizations have waited for months for evacuations to resume, but they have only done so sporadically since late October and only for those outside the Pause program. The final blow came on January 22, when program officials informed host organizations that Gazans were excluded from the program “because the French government is unable to evacuate them.”
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