France should take back the Statue of Liberty because the US no longer symbolises the values that motivated France to donate it, a Euro-deputy said Sunday.
“Give us back the Statue of Liberty”, Raphael Glucksmann pleaded at a Place Publique assembly. “We’re going to say to the Americans who have sided with the tyrants, to the Americans who fired researchers for demanding scientific freedom: ‘Give us back the Statue of Liberty,’” he urged roaring supporters.
We gave it to you as a gift, but you hate it. “So it will be fine here at home,” he said.
To commemorate the American Declaration of Independence’s centenary, France gifted the Statue of Liberty to New York City’s port on October 28, 1886. Frenchman Auguste Bartholdi designed it.
On a little Seine island in Paris, the statue is much smaller. Glucksmann, a passionate Ukrainian defender, fiercely denounced President Donald Trump’s drastic war strategy change.
He also criticised Trump’s cuts to US research institutions, which triggered a French government attempt to recruit some. Glucksmann added, “The second thing we’ll 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 sense of innovation, their taste for doubt and research, have made your country the world’s leading power, then we’ll welcome them.
Since Trump took office in January, his administration has reduced federal research funding and tried to fire hundreds of health and climate researchers.
