French MP Demands US Return Statue of Liberty
MEP Raphaël Glucksmann has suggested that the US now despises freedom and should return the Statue of Liberty back to France. According to the politician, the US has moved away from democracy and sided with the "tyrants", France24 reports .
The politician voiced his idea during a congress of the left-of-centre movement Place publique.
"We will say to the Americans who have chosen to side with tyrants, to the Americans who have fired scientists for demanding scientific freedom: 'Give us back the Statue of Liberty.' We gave it to you, but you seem to despise it," Glucksmann said.
As the publication notes, Glucksmann is a supporter of aid to Ukraine and has previously repeatedly criticized the US administration for “rapprochement with Russia.”
What did the US respond?
The United States will not return the Statue of Liberty to France, White House spokeswoman Caroline Levitt said. According to her, France should be grateful for America's help – we are talking about the liberation of France by Allied forces from Nazi Germany during World War II.
"Absolutely not. It is only thanks to the United States of America that the French do not speak German today. So they should be grateful to our great country," Levitt said.
The Statue of Liberty was made in France and unveiled in New York in 1886. The idea for the monument was suggested by the French writer and politician Edouard René Lefebvre de Laboulaye. He was inspired by the victory of the abolitionists in the American Civil War of 1861–1865.
The Statue of Liberty is a monumental neoclassical sculpture located in the United States on Liberty Island, located in Upper New York Harbor, approximately three kilometers southwest of the southern tip of Manhattan Island.
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