This morning (Monday), the Paris Air Show opened — an exhibition in which Israel Aerospace Industries and other leading Israeli companies have been traditionally participating in for many years.
Unfortunately, last night the event organizers blocked access to our booth as well as to all other Israeli company booths in the exhibition.
Statement from IAI’s president and CEO, Boaz Levy: “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.
As the son of a Holocaust survivor, I am very disturbed that not even 100 years after the Holocaust, our people are being discriminated against due to their religion. This type of behavior is not acceptable and discriminates against us as Israelis and Jewish people since all of the other participants in this Airshow do not have these limitations. We are shocked by the behavior of the Paris Airshow organizers and the French authorities who blocked our team from entering our booth.
https://www.iai.co.il/trade-shows/paris-airshow-2025