Donald Trump’s ambassador to France has been summoned to the country’s foreign ministry over a statement by the U.S. State Department warning of “violent radical leftism.”
The spat stems from the Trump administration’s response to a high-profile incident in the city of Lyon last week. A French far-right activist died of brain injuries after a fight broke out on the margins of a student meeting where a far-left lawmaker, Rima Hassan, was giving a keynote address, the AP reported.
The State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau wrote on X.com that, “Violent radical leftism is on the rise and its role in Quentin Deranque’s death demonstrates the threat it poses to public safety. We will continue to monitor the situation and expect to see the perpetrators of violence brought to justice.”
Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot responded by summoning U.S. Ambassador Charles Kushner, whose son Jared is married to President Trump’s oldest daughter Ivanka, to a meeting on Monday evening, diplomatic sources told the AP.
“We reject any instrumentalization of this tragedy, which has plunged a French family into mourning, for political ends,” Barrot said in a statement. “We have no lessons to learn, particularly on the issue of violence, from the international reactionary movement.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the State Department for comment.
Seven people have been charged in connection with Deranque’s death, six of them with intentional homicide and one with complicity in intentional homicide, the AP reported.
It’s not the first time Kushner has been embroiled in a diplomatic firestorm in France.
In August, he infuriated the French government when he penned an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal accusing French President Emmanuel Macron of failing to combat antisemitism, “haranguing Israel,” and “endangering Jewish life” in France by recognizing a Palestinian state.
He then blew off a summons to the Ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires Ètrangères—colloquially known as the Quai d’Orsay—sending his deputy chief of mission and chargé d’affaires in his place.
The officials were warned that Kushner’s criticism constituted interference in France’s internal affairs, which is prohibited under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, Le Figaro reported.
“I think this is a mistake and an unacceptable statement for somebody who is supposed to be a diplomat,” Macron told CBS Face the Nation in September.
“Never would a French ambassador be allowed to do so. So, either you are a person who wants to speak freely, fine. If you are a diplomat, you have to follow the rules of diplomacy,” he added.
