Kim Willsher – The Guardian
A French government spokesman has criticised Donald Trump for displaying a lack of “common decency” when he attacked Emmanuel Macron on the anniversary of the 2015 Paris terror attacks.
As France marked the anniversary of the Bataclan attacks in which 130 people were killed, Trump launched a string of angry tweets on Tuesday, condemning the key US ally over its near defeat to Germany in two world wars, its wine industry and Emmanuel Macron’s approval ratings.
When asked on Wednesday about the US leader’s Twitter posts, the French government spokesman, Benjamin Griveaux, said: “Yesterday was November 13. We were marking the murder of 130 of our people, so I’ll reply in English: ‘common decency’ would have been appropriate.”
It was the most strongly worded official response to come out of Paris since Trump launched his social media assault after returning to Washington from a weekend in Paris to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of the first world war where strained relations between the US president and European allies were on full display.
The basis of Trump’s attack appeared to be a misunderstanding of an interview Macron gave to the Europe 1 radio station last week, calling for an EU army so that the continent could defend itself alone “without only relying on the United States”.
Although Macron told Trump his words had been misinterpreted, Trump ignored this and wrote five tweets covering the French president’s low popularity, unemployment in France, tariffs on American wine and France’s second world war record.
The French were “starting to learn German in Paris before the U.S. came along”, he wrote.
His final tweet concluded: “MAKE FRANCE GREAT AGAIN!”
The Elysée Palace has made no comment on the Twitter spat, but Griveaux said Macron made “a brief reference” to Trump’s tweets during the weekly ministers’ council.
The spokesman said the French president had “basically repeated what he’d already had a chance to say to a major American media that diplomacy shouldn’t be carried out by tweeting, but in bilateral discussions”.
He added that Macron also hoped France could “have frank and even sincere relations with our historic ally”.
Macron refused to be drawn into the spat when he appeared on the evening news during a visit to the French aircraft carrier the Charles de Gaulle.
Evoking France and America’s long historical ties, he said: “France was there, Lafayette and several others [during the American war of independence]. When France was attacked, the United States was there and tens of thousands of young Americans came to our country. When the Twin Towers were attacked, France was at the US’s side. There must be respect between allies.”
Macron added: “Donald Trump does American politics and I will leave him to do American politics.”
Trump’s tweets came at a particularly sensitive time as France mourned the victims of the 13 November 2015 attacks during which nine Islamist terrorists carried out a series of shootings and bombings.
These began at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, then a series of bars, restaurants and cafes in the French capital, and culminated at the Bataclan concert hall. As well as the 130 dead, more than 350 people were injured in the worst ever terrorist attack in the city.
