A French politician has called on the US to give the Statue of Liberty back after suggesting that some Americans “have chosen to switch to the side of the tyrants.”
Raphael Glucksmann, a member of the European Parliament who represents the small left-wing party Place Publique, made the comments at a rally on Sunday.
“Give us back the Statue of Liberty,” said Glucksmann. “It was our gift to you. But apparently you despise her.”
The statue was a gift of friendship to America from France. Inaugurated in 1886, it represents Libertas, the Roman liberty goddess, bearing a torch in her right hand and a tablet in her left hand with the date of the US Declaration of Independence.
Broken shackles lie underneath the statue’s drapery, to symbolize the end of all types of servitude and oppression.
On Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt fired back at Glucksmann.
“My advice to that unnamed low-level French politician would be to remind them that it’s only because of the United States of America that the French are not speaking German right now, so they should be very grateful to our great country,” she said.
Glucksmann then responded in a series of posts on X and Instagram.
He emphasized that his gratitude to the US “heroes” that fought against the Nazis in WWII is “eternal,” before making a contrast with US President Donald Trump’s recent attempts to negotiate a settlement between Russia and Ukraine, as well as Trump’s public spat with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“The America of these heroes fought against tyrants, it did not flatter them. It was the enemy of fascism, not the friend of Putin. It helped the resistance and didn’t attack Zelensky,” he wrote.
“It is precisely because I am petrified by Trumps (sic) betrayal that I said yesterday in a rally that we could symbolically take back the Statue of Liberty if your government despised everything it symbolizes in your eyes, ours, and those of the world,” said Glucksmann.
“No one, of course, will come and steal the Statue of Liberty. The statue is yours. But what it embodies belongs to everyone,” he said.
“And if the free world no longer interests your government, then we will take up the torch, here in Europe.”
Glucksmann is co-president of the Place Publique party, which currently holds three seats in the European Parliament, as well as one in the French parliament and another in the country’s senate.
Despite his party’s small size, Glucksmann has received an increasing amount of attention in the French media, including an in-depth interview in political magazine Le Nouvel Obs published March 5, in which he underlined the importance that European powers step up their defense spending amid a reorienting of US policy priorities.
It has also been rumored that Glucksmann is planning to run for president in elections scheduled for early 2027.