Meet the French mayor who hung Israeli flags and a hostage banner on his City Hall

Leading Nice, the 5th-largest metropolitan area in France, the self-described ‘Jew at heart’ Christian Estrosi bucks opposition – and death threats – in his stalwart defense of Israel

By ROBERT SARNER, The Times of Israel, October 31, 2025

NICE — Over the past two years, Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi has been among France’s most vocal elected officials calling for the release of those kidnapped by Hamas during the terror group’s bloody invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023. As such, the recent return of all surviving hostages and a growing number of the dead has made a strong impact on him.

“I felt mixed emotions,” says Estrosi. “A lot of joy, but also sadness. Sadness in thinking of the October 7 massacre and the ensuing two years of horror for the hostages and their families, which continues with Hamas still not having returned all the deceased hostages.”

“While I rejoiced over the incredible images of the hostages being reunited with their loved ones, I also thought of those families still waiting for their loved ones who are no longer alive,” he said.

Until a few weeks ago, Israelis visiting the French Riviera city of Nice could be forgiven for being shocked when they walked past the City Hall. Figuring prominently at its main entrance was a sight unexpected at a municipal building outside Israel — a large, vertical banner with photos of the 48 Israelis still being held at the time by Hamas in Gaza, with uppercase text demanding their release.

The banner was inspired by another unusual sight. Until this summer, on the historic building’s main balcony outside Estrosi’s third-floor office, eight Israeli flags, in two separate groups, had pride of place alongside their French and European Union counterparts.

Estrosi had the Israeli flags installed there following the October 7 atrocities in Israel. In solidarity with the Jewish state, he vowed to keep the blue-and-white flags in place until all hostages were released. Despite opposition to the move, Estrosi stayed true to his word until an administrative court ordered them removed four months ago, prompting him to erect the hostage banner at City Hall.

 

‘My duty to protect the values I share’

Estrosi’s actions were a rare exception among public officials in France.

“My position on this issue wasn’t based on courage, but rather on my convictions and values,” Estrosi, 70, tells The Times of Israel during an interview in his spacious City Hall office. “It comes from my commitment to justice and the fight against barbarism, antisemitism and anti-Zionism. I consider it my duty to humanity and civilization to protect the values I share with Israel and what they represent in the history of humanity. Today, that includes defending them in the face of so much hate and adversity.”

It’s not without consequences for Estrosi, long known for his support of Israel and stance against antisemitism.

“Because of the stand I take, I’m subjected to insults and attempts at intimidation, including death threats against me,” says Estrosi. “I accept this can happen when defending one’s principles and values, but I’ve always said very clearly that nothing will cause me to be intimidated. You always lose a war when you’re afraid. That’s what I say to my Jewish friends. I tell them, ‘Don’t be afraid in Nice. I’m here to protect and defend you. I refuse that one should be afraid to be Jewish in Nice.’”

Located on France’s Mediterranean coast, Nice is the country’s fifth largest city, home to 355,000 people, including an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 Jews. Residents have repeatedly re-elected Estrosi as mayor since he first took office 17 years ago. Since then, he’s consistently demonstrated his friendship and concern for the Jewish community.

 

In recent weeks alone, he hosted a ceremony marking the second anniversary of October 7 and laid the first stone of a future Holocaust museum. In early September, soon after someone had cut down a memorial tree near Paris honoring Ilan Halimi, a young French Jew kidnapped and tortured to death by an antisemitic gang in 2006, Estrosi helped plant an olive tree in Nice in tribute to Halimi. Hours later, in publicly denouncing an attempt that day by three anti-Israeli demonstrators carrying Palestinian flags to forcibly enter a local synagogue, he decried the sharp rise in antisemitic acts in France since October 7.

Last year, Estrosi marked the first anniversary of the October 7 massacre, unveiling a memorial sculpture by artist Joann Sfar in a hilltop park. In 2020, he inaugurated a Wall of Remembrance for the nearly 3,500 Jews, including 264 children, the Nazis deported from the Nice region to their deaths at Auschwitz. In 2014, in cooperation with Yad Vashem, Estrosi inaugurated the Wall of the Righteous Among the Nations, honoring 125 people who saved Jews during the Holocaust in Nice and the surrounding areas.

 

In 1942, after initially being part of the Nazi-allied unoccupied Vichy France, Nice came under Italian control. Many European Jews fled there, considering it a safe haven because the Italians refused to deport them. That changed tragically in September 1943 when Nazi troops took over Nice and started hunting Jews under the direction of notorious SS commander Alois Brunner, right-hand man to Adolf Eichmann.

“For me, antisemitism is a poison,” says Estrosi. “In the middle of the last century, and in other periods of history, it has shown itself the worst insult to humanity. Due to this antisemitic ideology, France, including my city, has paid an extremely heavy price. Today, I have the impression we’re in the process of returning to the 1930s and I fear antisemitism will continue to grow in France.”

‘A new step forward’

Estrosi welcomed US President Donald Trump’s intervention in the Israel-Hamas war, which led to the fragile but so-far stable ceasefire he brokered earlier this month.

“The ceasefire and release of the final living hostages signified a new step forward,” says Estrosi. “We marked it symbolically by taking down the banner at the City Hall entrance, which was a moment of strong emotions and worry about the fate of the deceased hostages still not returned to Israel.”

 

Born in Nice to immigrant parents from Italy, Estrosi first made a name for himself as a professional motorcycle racer competing internationally. He began his political career as a member of Nice’s city council before serving in Parliament and later holding several ministerial positions in the national government in Paris ahead of becoming Nice’s mayor in 2008.

In June, Nice hosted the 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference, attended by 15,000 people, including heads of state, government leaders, mayors and scientists from around the world.

“Before the conference, I wondered if the UN would ask me to remove the Israeli flags from City Hall for the duration of the five-day gathering,” says Estrosi. “To my big surprise, they didn’t make any such demand, and, to my satisfaction, the flags remained in place for everyone to see.”

Ironically, while the UN didn’t create a problem for him, his own country did. A week after the conference, the national government’s representative at the local level formally requested Estrosi to remove the Israeli flags, saying they violated the “principle of neutrality in the public service.” Estrosi refused, after which the matter went to the administrative court, which ruled against him, forcing the flags to come down, but he stayed resolute.

 

“Anticipating a negative decision from the court, I prepared my response in advance,” Estrosi says. “When I went on the balcony to remove the Israeli flags myself, many of my supporters were assembled below, where they booed the decision of the court and French government. I told the crowd to wait for two minutes. I went downstairs to the main entrance and unveiled the banner for the hostages, much to the jubilation of many people there.”

US Ambassador to France Charles Kushner — father of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner — phoned Estrosi to commend him for his actions, which have elicited hundreds of messages of support from Jews in Israel and around the world over the past two years.

“When I decided to put the Israeli flags on the outside of City Hall, I didn’t intend it as unconditional support for the Netanyahu government,” Estrosi specifies. “I don’t want to interfere in Israel’s political life. Putting the flags was a humanitarian act, not a political one. I simply chose to defend a democracy that was attacked by Islamist terrorists.”

 

Its own history of terror

Nice has its own tragic experience with Islamist terrorism. In July 2016, a 31-year-old Tunisian man drove a 19-ton truck through crowds at a Bastille Day celebration on the city’s seaside promenade, killing 86 people and injuring hundreds of others.

“With Israel on the frontlines fighting Islamist terrorism, it’s a rampart for our country, protecting us,” says Estrosi. “Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, is being attacked and is defending itself. Our duty is to be by its side and when one is a public official, like me, to affirm that.”

 

Estrosi, who in the past publicly declared himself “Jewish at heart” and a “proud friend of Israel,” has visited Israel numerous times and plans to travel there later this year. Both Haifa and Netanya are twin cities of Nice.

In 2016, following a previous marriage, he married Jewish journalist Laura Tenoudji, with whom he has a daughter.

“My commitment to Israel and fighting antisemitism aren’t at all linked to my [current] family situation,” says Estrosi. “It dates back more than 30 years ago, well before I met my wife, when I first became really involved with the Israeli cause.”

In 2011, the University of Haifa awarded Estrosi an honorary degree, citing his “deep and sincere friendship with the State of Israel; his commitment to the fight against antisemitism and anti-Israel activity and his great contribution to strengthening ties between Israel and France in the fields of finance, politics and health.”

 

He takes issue with French President Emmanuel Macron’s promoting the creation of a Palestinian state.

“What the president [Macron] did recently at the UN makes me very sad,” says Estrosi. “Today, to call for the creation of a Palestinian state is to give reason to those who carried out the October 7, 2023, pogrom in Israel. A discussion on the institutional future of the Palestinians shouldn’t happen before Hamas is fully neutralized, all the hostages are returned and other conditions have been met.”

Following October 7, Estrosi didn’t anticipate how things would play out.

“I never would’ve believed then that two years later, we’d still have to fight for Hamas to release hostages,” he says. “I also didn’t expect that the October 7 massacre of Jews would be followed by such a huge rise in antisemitism that shows no sign of stopping. Combating it requires a political commitment. It’s a moral fight that’s far from over.”