Paris: French centre-left politician and member of the European Parliament Raphael Glucksmann has demanded that the US return the Statue of Liberty as the country seems to have lost the values associated with the structure.
Addressing a convention of his party Place Publique, Glucksmann said: “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.”
According to Dawn, there were loud cheers by his supporters after he said this.
“‘We gave it to you as a gift, but apparently you despise it. So, it will be just fine here at home,” Glucksmann, a vocal supporter of Ukraine, added. In the recent past, he has criticised US president Donald Trump for the radical change he brought about in the country’s policy on the Russo-Ukrainian War.
The 46-metre-high statue (without its pedestal) was designed by French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi and the metal framework was built by Gustave Eiffel. It was sent in pieces by ship to the US and was assembled on Liberty Island in New York on October 28, 1886. For nearly 140 years, it has been a symbol of welcome to immigrants arriving by sea to the proverbial ‘Land of The Free’.
France has a much smaller copy of the statue on a small island on the Seine in Paris. The 45-year-old Glucksmann also criticised Trump’s decision to cut funds to research institutions that has prompted the French government to call some of them to work in that country.
“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 said.
Trump has sought to fire hundreds of federal workers working on health and climate research.
