French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot announced that his country will initiate proceedings to ban the sale of products from "Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank," amid rising settler violence, which he said "further undermines the prospects for a two-state solution with the Palestinians." He noted that France is imposing sanctions along with 11 other countries "because the West Bank is close to explosion - there is a feverish expansion of settlements, an escalation of violence against Palestinians by extremist settlers and acts of terror that even the Israeli authorities themselves have condemned."