Paris Air Show 2025: Israeli stands walled off at Le Bourget

Having been barred from showing their systems at both France’s Eurosatory defence exhibition in June 2024 and Euronaval show in October 2024 in light of Israeli military operations against Hamas in Gaza, most Israeli defence companies, including Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), Elbit Systems, Rafael, Aeronautics and UVision, have now been frozen out of the 2025 Paris Air Show.

The move comes as the Israeli Defense Forces are not only still engaged in Gaza but are now embroiled in Operation ‘Rising Lion’: a campaign that began on 13 June – just three days before the air show opened – in an effort to eliminate what Israel claims is an Iranian nuclear weapon threat to the Jewish state that had been close to coming to fruition.

Israeli stands at Le Bourget, where the 2025 Paris Air Show is running from 16 to 22 June, have been shrouded by the positioning of black walls and sheets that obscure everything that was on display except for a few systems suspended above the stands or rising over them.

In an emotionally charged communication issued on 16 June, IAI CEO Boaz Levy stated, “Following decades of participation in the Paris Airshow and discussions with the French authorities, we received all of the authorizations to participate in the airshow and have done everything they requested from us. Last night, after our booth was set up and ready for the show, we were asked to remove some of our systems from the booth. We tried to negotiate with them, but it seems these orders came from the highest levels in Paris, and this morning, when we arrived at our booth, we were shocked to find out that we were blocked by black walls built overnight, which reminds us of the dark days of when Jews were segmented from European society.”

Levy then evoked the anti-Jewish measures imposed during the Holocaust and added, “We are shocked by the behaviour of the Paris Airshow organizers and the French authorities who blocked our team from entering our booth.”

The Israeli Ministry of Defence (IMOD), meanwhile, even claimed there was a commercial aspect to the move.

“This outrageous and unprecedented decision reeks of policy-driven and commercial considerations,” the IMOD said in a statement. “The French are hiding behind supposedly political considerations to exclude Israeli offensive weapons from an international exhibition – weapons that compete with French industries.”

The shrouding of the Israeli stands reportedly occurred following a demand from the French authorities that offensive weapon exhibits should be removed from display. ESD cannot verify to what extend this edict had been followed by the Israeli companies, but the missiles protruding above the black walls around the IAI stand, for example, were air defence interceptors that would not generally be regarded as ‘offensive weapons’.

The Paris Air Show is organised by SIAE: a subsidiary of the French Aerospace Industries Association (GIFAS). When GIFAS was approached by ESD at the Paris Air Show on 16 June for a comment on the Israeli situation, a spokesperson for the organisation declined to comment.