President Emmanuel Macron has claimed Donald Trump does not like France, while accusing the U.S. president of making false statements about the ongoing protests in parts of the country.
High school students have been staging demonstrations in several French cities since September to protest the rising cost of living and deteriorating school conditions, and more than 2,500 people have been arrested after some protests turned violent.
“Well, one has to admit it. All the people who are speaking ill of our country right now are people who don’t like our country,” Mr Macron said when journalists asked whether Mr Trump disliked France amid White House’s comments on the situation in the country.
“There are people who claimed that we had been overrun by hordes of migrants and Islamists, which is completely false,” Mr Macron said.
When journalists asked if this included Mr Trump, he replied, “Among others. You know, at times like these, you can see who likes France and who doesn’t.”
Mr Trump used the protests in France as one of his campaign points ahead of the midterm elections, claiming that the United States risks sharing similar fate with France if the Republican Party loses.
“If you want to see what is at stake in this election, just look at what’s happening in France, a once great nation that is being conquered, looted and burned to the ground by migrants, jihadists and communists who hate Christianity,” Mr Trump said during a rally in Kansas on Monday.
Both Mr Trump and Vice-President JD Vance have expressed support for the opposition far-right National Rally party, which blamed the situation in France on soft policies on crimes by Mr Macron’s administration.
“We are paying for decades of being soft on crime, of weak authority, of the moral, psychological, and material disarmament of our internal security forces,” Jordan Bardella, the president of the far-right National Rally, said on Sunday.