US Walks Out on France at UN Meeting   07/28 06:21

   

   UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- U.S. diplomats walked out as their French 
counterparts were speaking at the United Nations on Monday after America's 
close European ally criticized the Trump administration's human rights record.

   The surprise move during a U.N. Security Council meeting on Ukraine followed 
U.S. opposition to giving U.N. human rights chief Volker Trk another four-year 
term. The reappointment on Friday got overwhelming support, including from 
France.

   The U.S. walkout reflects not only the more strained relations between 
President Donald Trump and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, but also 
wider tensions between the U.S. and Europe. These include questions over 
Trump's commitment to NATO, possible changes to U.S. troop deployments in 
Europe, and Trump's desire to control Greenland, which belongs to NATO member 
Denmark.

   Trump has complained that Europeans, who weren't consulted, did not help the 
U.S. during the Iran war. Amid the tensions, Macron has taken a lead in trying 
to build up Europe's military and ensure a nuclear umbrella as one of the 
continent's two nuclear powers, along with Britain.

   After Monday's brief walkout, deputy U.S. ambassador Dan Negrea accused 
France of feigning "moral outrage" and pretending to lecture the world about 
every topic, including human rights.

   The United States has stood by France in every conflict where its "freedom 
has been imperiled" and tolerated its grandstanding "out of a sense of 
camaraderie and mutual respect," he said, but no more.

   What sparked the walkout was a social media post Friday from France's U.N. 
Mission in Geneva criticizing U.S. opposition to a second term for the U.N. 
rights chief. The General Assembly voted 144-10 with 13 abstentions in support 
of Trk, with the U.S. among the "no" votes.

   "The US used to be a beacon of human rights. Not anymore. Today, it stands 
alongside North Korea, Nicaragua, Mali & Russia, isolated. And the world no 
longer listens to it," the French Mission tweeted.

   Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., in responding on X, accused 
France of coddling "some of the worst human rights abusers" and voting "for 
someone who has been lecturing, free, sovereign democracies like the United 
States, the UK, and Israel, while cozying up to the world's worst oppressors."

   Trk's job as the U.N. rights chief, by its nature, is tricky: It requires 
speaking out against rights violations by the governments of the countries that 
make up the membership of the world body.

   For instance, Trk has sharply criticized Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine 
and Israel's war in Gaza as well as having urged a "massive rethink" of U.S. 
immigration policy before the World Cup, citing issues around "racial 
profiling, surveillance and immigration enforcement."

   At Monday's meeting, Negrea drilled in on France.

   "Today, I remind them that it is the United States that remains the beacon 
of liberty for the world," he said. "As such, we will not be affording them the 
benefit of listening to their politicized drivel until they renounce their 
condescending and disrespectful rhetoric and behave in a manner commensurate 
with their seat on this council."

   France's U.N. Ambassador Jerome Bonnafont never mentioned the walkout when 
asked to take the floor at the end of the council meeting to respond.

   Instead, he noted that France -- which helped the United States gain its 
independence -- took part in the July 4 celebration of America's 250th 
anniversary.

   "The United Nations was created with the goal of working towards 
international peace and security, human rights and development," he said. "All 
of that forms the spirit in which France works within the United Nations ... to 
preserve this institution, its independence, its ability to act in service of 
the charter and act to serve human rights and peace."