French Politician Demands America Return the Statue of Liberty
Ya gotta love the, as it were, gall. Or maybe make that “gaul.”
News reports are reporting headlines like this one from USA Today: “French lawmaker says US should return Statue of Liberty. White House says ‘absolutely not.’”
The story reports:
A French politician said Sunday the U.S. should give back the Statue of Liberty in an apparent critique of President Donald Trump’s leadership.
“We’re going to say to the Americans who have chosen to side with the tyrants, to the Americans who fired researchers for demanding scientific freedom: ‘Give us back the Statue of Liberty,’” said French member of the European Parliament Raphaël Glucksmann Sunday, according to local outlet France 24.
France gifted the Statue of Liberty to the U.S. after the Civil War, and it has become a renowned symbol of democracy and freedom.
“We gave it to you as a gift, but apparently you despise it. So it will be just fine here at home,” Glucksmann said at a convention of his Place Publique movement, according to France 24.
Presumably, Monsieur Glucksmann made his remarks in French. Most assuredly he did not make them in German.
There is a reason for that. As White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “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.”
Amen.
For those who don’t recall history, as apparently Monsieur Glucksmann does not, France does not speak German today because, on June 6, 1944, America and its Western allies landed over 150,000 soldiers on the beaches of France to rescue Glucksmann’s country and its citizens from the fascist captivity of Adolph Hitler’s Nazi Germany. The Germans had invaded France four years earlier in May of 1940.
In coming to France’s rescue, history records over 10,000 Allied troops were killed by the Germans, with thousands more wounded or missing.
All of which is to say the German invaders of Glucksmann’s country were repelled precisely because Americans were literally putting their lives on the line for the principles of liberty represented by the Statue of Liberty.
And while we’re on the subject of dictatorships? It is Glucksmann’s France that has a history sprinkled with dictatorships. It was, for example, the ruling Jacobins of France who declared “Terror as the order of the day.”
As noted here (bold print supplied for emphasis) it was France where the French Revolution
would last from September 1793 to July 1794. During this time, the Jacobins implemented harsh measures to suppress dissent and eliminate enemies of the revolution.
The Revolutionary Tribunal, established by the National Convention, conducted a series of trials that resulted in increasing numbers of public executions.
Thousands of people, including former allies, were executed under the Revolutionary Tribunal, which was established to try those accused of counter-revolutionary activities.
Under Robespierre’s direction, the committee implemented the Law of Suspects on September 17, 1793. This law broadened the definition of counter-revolutionary activities, leading to the arrest of tens of thousands of people.
Between September 1793 and July 1794, approximately 300,000 individuals were detained under suspicion of opposing the revolution.
With this as the historical record of his own country, Monsieur Glucksmann presumes to lecture Americans about our support for freedom and liberty. All because millions of Americans have voted in a free election to support a candidate with a decided record of speaking out for freedom and American liberty. Not to mention demanding that America’s Western allies put their money on the table to support freedom and liberty as it comes under threat from foreign adversaries.
In short, what Americans have just heard in a French politician’s call to give back the Statue of Liberty is a reminder of not only the hypocrisy some in Europe exhibit when it comes to America. We are reminded that America is free in the first place because of our ancestors’ willingness to stand up to the threats of dictatorship whether, for Americans, from a long ago British monarchy or, for the French, from a Jacobin French Revolution that featured terror as its organizing principle.
And oh yes there was that French ruler named Napoleon. That would be the guy who declared himself Emperor and made a point of having the only person in France whom he saw as qualified place the Emperor’s crown on his head.
That would be himself.
Perhaps before Monsieur Glucksmann presumes to lecture Americans on our decidedly vivid support for freedom and liberty, he should take a look at the history of his own country.
And maybe get out the French wallet to pay Americans back for the cost of D-Day?
Thanks for the statue. As someone from the Reagan White House who had a ringside seat for the president’s celebration of the Statue’s centennial in 1986, I can assure France’s contribution has not been forgotten.
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