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The White House has dismissed a French politician’s symbolic call for the return of the Statue of Liberty – a gift from France some 140 years ago – on the grounds that the United States no longer represents the values embodied by the monument.
President Donald Trump would “absolutely not” return the statue, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday when asked about the comments from Raphaël Glucksmann, a member of the European Parliament.
“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,” Leavitt said, referring to the U.S. role in helping France during World War II. “So they should be very grateful to our great country.”
The United States played a major role in freeing France from four years of occupation by Nazi Germany, but it did not act alone. On June 6, 1944, Allied forces – primarily American, British and Canadian troops – launched the pivotal D-Day invasion, which marked the beginning of France’s liberation.
Glucksmann, from France’s center-left Place Publique party, made the quip about the Statue of Liberty during a party convention Sunday.
“We are going to tell the Americans – those who have chosen to side with tyrants, those who fire researchers for exercising scientific freedom – we are going to tell them two things. First of all, give us back the Statue of Liberty!” he said.
“We gave it to you as a gift, but apparently, you despise it. So let it be here with us,” he added.
Glucksmann, a vocal advocate for Ukraine’s defense in its war against Russia, has previously accused European leaders of not providing sufficient support to Kiev.
In his comments Sunday, he was also critical of the Trump administration’s gutting of federal assistance to U.S. research institutes. Earlier this month, France’s minister for higher education and research urged institutions in the country to welcome researchers affected by Trump’s cuts in the United States.
Julian Jackson, an emeritus professor of modern French history at Queen Mary University of London, called Glucksmann a respected and articulate leader. “And the Statue of Liberty is of course a reminder that America partly owes her independence to the French, as in the War of Independence,” he said in an email.
France provided arms, ammunition, troops and naval support to the American colonies during the Revolutionary War.
The Statue of Liberty, a prominent symbol of freedom and hope, draws millions of visitors every year. It was first imagined by Édouard de Laboulaye of France, an ardent admirer of the United States, as a gift to commemorate the centennial of the Declaration of Independence and the abolition of slavery.
Sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi designed the statue to capture those values: a crown representing light, an inscription noting the date of American independence and a broken shackle and chains to mark the end of slavery. The completed statue was disassembled and shipped to New York in 1885, while the plaque with the famous Emma Lazarus poem was added in 1903.
In a social media thread late Monday, Glucksmann responded to Leavitt by acknowledging the heroism of the “hundreds of thousands of young Americans” who landed on the beaches of Normandy while casting the Trump administration’s stance on Ukraine as a betrayal of the war-battered country and the United States’ European allies.
Europe has been alarmed by Trump’s embrace of Russian President Vladimir Putin and struggled to adapt to Washington’s wavering support for Ukraine. Trump and Putin will speak by phone Tuesday to discuss ending the war in Ukraine, according to the Kremlin.
“No one, of course, will come and steal the Statue of Liberty. The statue is yours. But what it embodies belongs to everyone,” Glucksmann wrote. “And if the free world no longer interests your government, then we will take up the torch, here in Europe.”
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