General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFrench Member Of European Parliament Responds To Karoline Leavitt
Following Press Secretary Leavitt’s stunning response to French MEP Raphaël Glucksmann’s statement that France should reclaim the Statue of Liberty because the US no longer upholds its original values, Glucksmann doubled down last night.
Dear Americans,
Since the White House press secretary is attacking me today, I wanted to tell you this:
1. Our two people are intimately linked by History, the blood we shed and the passion for freedom we share, a passion symbolized by this Statue that was offered to the United States by France to honor your glorious Revolution.
2. As the press secretary for this shameful Administration said: without your nation, France would have "spoken German." In my case, it goes further: I would simply not be here if hundreds of thousands of young Americans had not landed on our beaches in Normandy.
3. Our gratitude to these heroes and their sacrifices is therefore eternal.
4. But the America of these heroes fought against tyrants, it did not flatter them. It was the enemy of fascism, not the friend of Putin. It helped the resistance and didn't attack Zelensky.
5. It celebrated science and didn't fire researchers for using banned words. It welcomed the persecuted and didn't target them.
It was far, so far from what your current President does, says, and embodies.
6. This America, faithful to the wonderful words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, your America, is worth so much more than the betrayal of Ukraine and Europe, xenophobia, or obscurantism.
7. We all in Europe love this nation to which we know we owe so much. It will rise again. You will rise again. We are counting on you.
8. And it is precisely because I am petrified by Trump’s betrayal that I said yesterday in a rally that we could symbolically take back the Statue of Liberty if your government despised everything it symbolizes in your eyes, ours, and those of the world.
It was a wake up call.
9. No one, of course, will come and steal the Statue of Liberty.
The statue is yours. But what it embodies belongs to everyone.
And if the free world no longer interests your government, then we will take up the torch, here in Europe.
10. Until we meet again in the fight for freedom and dignity, we will be the continuators of our shared history and the protectors of our treasure: more than a statue of copper and steel, the freedom it symbolizes.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Ocelot II
(125,357 posts)
efhmc
(15,564 posts)
Nanjeanne
(6,186 posts)
malaise
(285,490 posts)Rec
OrlandoDem2
(2,907 posts)Then sign up for the April 5 Hands Off protests!
DENVERPOPS
(12,667 posts)a "few" years back, LOL
And THEY solved it with a guillotine........
alwaysinasnit
(5,431 posts)Baitball Blogger
(50,209 posts)moniss
(7,517 posts)understand what this person is saying or to possibly ever be so concise, correct and compassionate about anything either in writing or what comes from their mouth or exists in their tiny, tiny hearts and darkened souls.
yellow dahlia
(2,552 posts)She thinks wearing a cross gives her some sort of credibility.
Prof. Toru Tanaka
(2,653 posts)The perfect spokesperson for a vile presidential administration.
DENVERPOPS
(12,667 posts)She is the Epitome of a "Perfect" RepubliCON......
Moostache
(10,607 posts)Viva La France!
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité!!!
yellow dahlia
(2,552 posts)I feel like we are all hostages in this madness.
Big giant rescue effort needed.
ShazzieB
(20,935 posts)They helped us big time! But none of that means a thing to the Orange Hellbeast. France doesn't butter him up or help make him richer, so as far as he's concerned, they're useless. Those are the only things that matter to him.
Anybody else feel like they're living in a dystopian novel right now? Since Trusk and Mump took over the White House, nothing makes any fucking sense anymore.
Paladin
(30,775 posts)Just as soon as possible. Those words should never ever be forgotten.
Hekate
(98,186 posts)My profound thanks to French MEP Raphaël Glucksmann. I shared this post with my husband, whose first language was French (postwar Belgium) — we both choked up.
Thank you, Baron2024.
French Member Of European Parliament Responds To Karoline Leavitt
Following Press Secretary Leavitt’s stunning response to French MEP Raphaël Glucksmann’s statement that France should reclaim the Statue of Liberty because the US no longer upholds its original values, Glucksmann doubled down last night.
Dear Americans,
Since the White House press secretary is attacking me today, I wanted to tell you this:
1. Our two people are intimately linked by History, the blood we shed and the passion for freedom we share, a passion symbolized by this Statue that was offered to the United States by France to honor your glorious Revolution.
2. As the press secretary for this shameful Administration said: without your nation, France would have "spoken German." In my case, it goes further: I would simply not be here if hundreds of thousands of young Americans had not landed on our beaches in Normandy.
3. Our gratitude to these heroes and their sacrifices is therefore eternal.
4. But the America of these heroes fought against tyrants, it did not flatter them. It was the enemy of fascism, not the friend of Putin. It helped the resistance and didn't attack Zelensky.
5. It celebrated science and didn't fire researchers for using banned words. It welcomed the persecuted and didn't target them.
It was far, so far from what your current President does, says, and embodies.
6. This America, faithful to the wonderful words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, your America, is worth so much more than the betrayal of Ukraine and Europe, xenophobia, or obscurantism.
7. We all in Europe love this nation to which we know we owe so much. It will rise again. You will rise again. We are counting on you.
8. And it is precisely because I am petrified by Trump’s betrayal that I said yesterday in a rally that we could symbolically take back the Statue of Liberty if your government despised everything it symbolizes in your eyes, ours, and those of the world.
It was a wake up call.
9. No one, of course, will come and steal the Statue of Liberty.
The statue is yours. But what it embodies belongs to everyone.
And if the free world no longer interests your government, then we will take up the torch, here in Europe.
10. Until we meet again in the fight for freedom and dignity, we will be the continuators of our shared history and the protectors of our treasure: more than a statue of copper and steel, the freedom it symbolizes.
elleng
(139,790 posts)
aggiesal
(10,113 posts)One Last Time
We will teach them how to say Good Bye.
If you haven't heard this song, here is an attached if the original George Washington character played by Christopher Jackson
with Lin-Manuel Miranda as Hamilton, singing at the White House.
This was in 2016, before the events of Jan. 6th 2020.
The first time I heard this song was after the Jan. 6th insurrection.
I cry because one person never learned this message, and probably never will.
Have some Kleenex handy.
Torchlight
(4,860 posts)And THE momument to liberty 2.0 built elsewhere in the free world may not be a bad idea, and could certinaly strengthen unity in those places it's needed most.
rickyhall
(5,278 posts)
Cha
(312,109 posts)Mump's mouthpiece, Leavitt’, Stepped into That with both Ugly feet. 
Mahalo, Baron2024 
Irish_Dem
(71,211 posts)Vrais mots.
Beaux mots.
True and beautiful words.
Cirsium
(2,629 posts)Back in 1968 I was in Spain traveling "rough," hiking, sleeping outside, etc. I got to the French border one evening about midnight on a little local train. People were ordered off the train by stern looking armed officers, and we stood in line as people were interrogated and their luggage searched. I was tired and nervous. There were four scowling officers standing there when I got to the front of the line. I pulled my passport out of my pocket, and all four officers looked at it, recognized it as a US passport, and snapped to attention, and saluted me. They quickly stamped my passport with big smiles and waved me through.
I didn't earn that. I wasn't on the Normandy beaches. But my relatives and neighbors were.
That is what Trump is destroying.
Cha
(312,109 posts)
because it's so beautiful and tragic at the same time..
Mahalo
I was OK as I wrote it, now I'm
It really is an unbearable tragedy playing out.
Not Giving UP!
Anything Good can happen too. 
yorkster
(3,192 posts)scene in Casablanca...always get teary.
But there's a lot of defiance in that song, determination and hope as well.
Cha
(312,109 posts)Mahalo
Nice to see the cheery 👋
Take care.
Cha
(312,109 posts)Oh yes, "the Cheery"...
timvrip
(46 posts)I have lived in France for the past seven years, and I can’t tell you how many times citizens have expressed their gratitude when they find out I’m from États-Unis.
My grandfather fought in Nice in WWI and my father was in logistics on D-Day in WWII, although he was stationed in Dover.
Lately they express their disdain at America’s madman, but know most of us still embody the words that grace the Statue of Liberty.
Oui. Vive la France !
Figarosmom
(6,320 posts)Sentiment at all.
FirstLight
(15,297 posts)I fucking love France...never been, but it's my dream to visit.
Thanks to this man for saying what we ALL are feeling, if we could, we'd be the 'normal' USA again NOW... we have to get rid of the fascists, ALL of them.
Boycotting companies is one thing, but I'm down to petty personal stuff nonw. That MAGA burger joint in our small town? No longer getting my $
We need to start calling them out EVERYWHERE - schools, churches, grocery stores. If they say ANYTHING remotely MAGA we need to publicly shame them untill they see it's not useful, it's harmful.
I wonder what happened to all the Nazis when we liberated Europe?...not just the generals, but the hoards of soldiers? Did they just go back to life as usual and stop believing that way? How *did* Germany actually root them out and stop the idealology? We need to figure that out and do some Psy-ops on our MAGA neighbors...beat the brainwashing!
Baron2024
(1,492 posts)Beating the brainwashing is a good idea. I am not much of an historian of World War Two but I imagine that there are probably a number of books on what was done with the Germans and the Nazi mindset after the War. The Marshall Plan and the rebuilding of Europe probably was part of that. I think that you have the right idea about this subject matter.
electric_blue68
(21,874 posts)FirstLight
(15,297 posts)It's not very comforting though. Seems like the allies did the best they could, however only 10% of the population was part of the Nazi party. So basically we've got it worse 😕🤬
SunSeeker
(56,021 posts)
BOSSHOG
(42,868 posts)Nice correspondence from the gentleman from France but too polite for my liking. Her Highness deserved worse.
yorkster
(3,192 posts)and for that I'm grateful.
You're right about Leavitt the loathsome.
The word agorant comes to mind which I've seen here and elsewhere. Supremely arrogant and ignorant to boot.
oldsoldierfadingfast
(208 posts)German now if the British, with help from Germany had won the American Revolution - with a great deal of help from France.
johnnyplankton
(544 posts)What a contrast to the MAGA nitwits
The Blue Flower
(5,930 posts)She spews the same sh**. I keep wondering where she learned to do that. Does she kiss her baby with that mouth?
paleotn
(20,497 posts)Charles III would be on our money and our founders would have assuredly hung separately. WWII was a repayment of our debt to the French people and the House of Bourbon specifically. Louis XVI didn't have to help us. They still hadn't recovered from the Seven Years War. He bankrupted his country doing so and ironically sowed the seeds of his own demise. Had it not been for French boots on the ground and Comte de Grasse's fleet, Yorktown wouldn't have happened and our revolution would have eventually died of starvation. But I'm sure all that is well over the head of Baghdad Barbie. I'm probably more Anglophile than most Americans but we cannot ever thank the French enough.
Also ironically, I wouldn't mind having a Westminster style Parliament. Might have avoided our current unpleasantness.
elleng
(139,790 posts)if the free world no longer interests your government, then we will take up the torch, here in Europe.
10. Until we meet again in the fight for freedom and dignity, we will be the continuators of our shared history and the protectors of our treasure: more than a statue of copper and steel, the freedom it symbolizes.
JoseBalow
(7,697 posts)In the 18th century, Enlightenment philosophers applied the term obscurantist to any enemy of intellectual enlightenment and the liberal diffusion of knowledge. In the 19th century, in distinguishing the varieties of obscurantism found in metaphysics and theology, from the "more subtle" obscurantism of the critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant and of modern philosophical skepticism, Friedrich Nietzsche said that: "The essential element in the black art of obscurantism is not that it wants to darken individual understanding, but that it wants to blacken our picture of the world, and darken our idea of existence."
Hekate
(98,186 posts)… as with Bernard-Henri Levy, Philosopher.
JoseBalow
(7,697 posts)
Hekate
(98,186 posts)
electric_blue68
(21,874 posts)Hekate
(98,186 posts)yorkster
(3,192 posts)This clear and beautiful missive may have been written more to give us hope, resolve and the gift of our shared history, than to respond directly to Karoline Leavitt. Maybe even she can learn something from it. The most we can hope for is that she doesn't respond again.
But this letter is one for the ages.
BGRD
(16 posts)Karoline Leavitt, along with many of the people in Trumps administration, has been picked for the position because of her ignorance, not in spite of it. Maybe she should do some of "that there book learnin."Maybe if she knew the history of her country she would know that the French nation at the time of the American Revolution gave it full support to Washington and his army. They provided him with ammunition, arms, cannon, naval support, and French troops who spilled their blood on US soil. Some people say, that the US would have lost the Revolutionary war without Frances absolute support. So in a real sense the US may owe its very existence to the French people. Maybe the French should have done a treacherous Trump style deal.
Leavitt comments come from the deep well of ignorance that infests the current Administration.
Leavitt and a lot of the White House press corps should read a book or two about the military and political side of the American Revolution.
ProfessorGAC
(73,157 posts)She never learned it in the first place.
Too busy batting her eyes at the basketball stars in school.
Hassler
(4,396 posts)Know anything about anything.
oldsoldierfadingfast
(208 posts)for our existence - Does any one remember the American Revolutionary War? the Battle at Yorktown?
Fighting the British/German troops, we would have lost without Marquis de Lafayette and his French troops and could possibly still be living ruled by a king.
littlemissmartypants
(28,123 posts)🇫🇷❤️🇺🇸
Godot51
(496 posts)"Lafayette, we are here" was famously declared by Colonel Charles E. Stanton at the tomb of the Marquis de Lafayette in Paris on July 4, 1917, during World War I, acknowledging the debt owed to France for its help during the American Revolution.
ECL213
(381 posts)I posted a response comment of, "Oh yeah, well if it weren't for France supporting us in the Revolutionary War, we would all be speaking English right now!"
The comments I got back were all of the, "Oh, bullshit, we didn't need their help," variety, or some other nonsense about how their economy would collapse without the U.S. Just a bunch of right-wing horseshit.
Not one of the daft muthafuckas got the joke. We really are living in stupid times.
surfered
(7,378 posts)freedom from England without the French Fleet at the Battle of Yorktown
MayReasonRule
(3,476 posts) Number9Dream
(1,794 posts)
young_at_heart
(3,942 posts)They participated in the Siege of Yorktown and were there for Cornwallis's surrender. I have always felt a connection with the French!!
calimary
(86,711 posts)Little Miss Snippy (Karoline Leavitt) could take a lesson.
Wish she WOULD leave it.
mucholderthandirt
(1,549 posts)The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Emma Lazarus
November 2, 1883
Thank you, France, for once again standing with us, even as we toss a mad tantrum, tempting fate, perilously close to becoming the worst of humanity, once again.
Humanity just can't seem to learn the lessons of the past, and we must fight our way back yet another time, with horrible suffering to come. I weep without end.