PARIS — Hey, America: Give the Statue of Liberty back to France.
So says a French politician who is making headlines in his country for suggesting that the U.S. is no longer worthy of the monument, which was a gift from France nearly 140 years ago.
Raphaël Glucksmann, as a member of the European Parliament and co-president of a small left-wing party in France, can’t claim to speak for all of his compatriots.
But his assertion in a speech this weekend that some Americans “have chosen to switch to the side of the tyrants” reflects the broad shockwaves that U.S. President Donald Trump’s seismic shifts in foreign and domestic policy are triggering in France and elsewhere in Europe.
“Give us back the Statue of Liberty,” Glucksmann told supporters of his Public Place party, who applauded and whistled, on Sunday.
“It was our gift to you. But apparently you despise her. So she will be happy here with us,” Glucksmann said.
The White House brushed back on the comments Monday, saying France instead should still be “grateful” for U.S. support during World War I and World War II. Glucksmann, in turn, then shot back that French gratitude for Americans’ wartime sacrifices is “eternal,” but added: “If the free world no longer interests your government, then we will take up the torch, here in Europe.”
“No one, of course, will come and steal the Statue of Liberty,” he wrote in X posts. “The statue is yours. But what it embodies belongs to everyone.”
Dream on.
UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural arm that has the statue on its list of World Heritage treasures, notes that the iconic monument is U.S. government property.
It was initially envisaged as a monumental gesture of French-American friendship to mark the 100th anniversary of the July 4, 1776, Declaration of Independence.
But a war that erupted in 1870 between France and German states led by Prussia diverted the energies of the monument’s designer, French sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi.
The gift also took time to be funded, with a decision made that the French would pay for the statue and Americans would cover the costs of its pedestal.
Transported in 350 pieces from France, the statue was officially unveiled on Oct. 28, 1886.
No. French-U.S. relations would have to drop off a cliff before Glucksmann found support from French President Emmanuel Macron’s government.
For the moment, the French president is treading a fine line — trying to work with Trump and temper some of his policy shifts on the one hand, but also pushing back hard against some White House decisions, notably Trump’s tariff hikes.
Macron has let his prime minister, François Bayrou, play the role of being a more critical voice. Bayrou tore into the “brutality” that was shown to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his White House visit and suggested that Trump’s administration risked handing victory to Russia when it paused military aid to Ukraine.
Glucksmann’s party has been even more critical, posting accusations on its website that Trump is wielding power in an “authoritarian” manner and is “preparing to deliver Ukraine on a silver platter” to Russia.
In his speech, Glucksmann referenced New York poet Emma Lazarus’ words about the statue, the “mighty woman with a torch” who promised a home for the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
“Today, this land is ceasing to be what it was,” Glucksmann said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked Monday about Glucksmann’s comments, and responded that the U.S. would “absolutely not” be parting with the landmark in New York Harbor.
“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, apparently referencing the U.S. fight with Allied powers to free France from Nazi occupation during World War II and alongside France during World War I. “They should be very grateful.”
But the debt of gratitude runs both ways. Leavitt skipped past France’s key role in supporting the future United States during its war for independence from the United Kingdom.
In his subsequent follow-up, Glucksmann said that his call for Lady Liberty to travel back across the Atlantic to France had been intended as “a wake-up call.”
“We all in Europe love this nation to which we know we owe so much,” he posted. “It will rise again. You will rise again. We are counting on you.”
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Zeke Miller contributed to this report from Washington.