A French official made what appears to be a tongue-in-cheek request that President Donald Trump return the Statue of Liberty.
Raphael Glucksmann, who represents France in the European Parliament, told his fellow Socialists and Democrats alliance members that the United States should return the monument, which was given as a gift in 1886.
“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,’” Glucksmann said, per a Saturday report from Politico.
“We gave it to you as a gift, but apparently you despise it. So it will be just fine here at home,” he added.
Glucksmann continued his apparent rebuke of Trump’s government efficiency efforts, under which grants and contracts for politicized research have been nixed, by suggesting that France could hire the woke researchers instead.
“The second thing we’re going to say to the Americans is: ‘If you want to fire your best researchers, if you want to fire all the people who, through their freedom and their sense of innovation, their taste for doubt and research, have made your country the world’s leading power, then we’re going to welcome them,’” he continued.
But Glucksmann’s suggestions provoked nothing more than a bit of mockery here in America.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shot back on Monday that the French lawmaker was a bit arrogant for making that demand.
“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,” she answered.
“They should be very grateful.”
NEW: Karoline Leavitt reminds France that they’d be speaking German if it weren’t for the United States, reporters heard groaning.
Peter Doocy: A member of the European Parliament is calling for the US to send back the Statue of Liberty…
Leavitt: “My advice to that unnamed… pic.twitter.com/ffUsYtXPmA
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) March 17, 2025
If anything, Trump could fairly demand that we exchange the Statue of Liberty for the entire nation of France.
Glucksmann seemed to forget that American forces indeed liberated France, which was under Nazi control during World War II, only a few decades after the Statue of Liberty was sent across the Atlantic.
There were plenty of Americans who bled and died on D-Day and afterward to make that liberation happen, a fact which the French are usually quick to thankfully acknowledge.
To this day, the cemetery where the Americans buried their dead in Normandy is considered a piece of American territory, marking the gratitude of the French people.
Glucksmann could use a fair dose of that gratitude.
For now, Lady Liberty will be remaining on American soil, just like those tombstones.
But they are more than welcome to have those woke researchers. We won’t need even a single square inch of their territory for that to be a favorable deal.
