TOI correspondent from Washington: The smackdown was swift, but the blowback was brutal. The Trump White House on Monday reaped a whirlwind in history after sowing the wind with a snarky putdown to a French politician’s suggestion that the US should return the Statue of Liberty, a gift from France, because Americans have chosen tyranny over freedom.
“If it weren’t for the US, the French would be speaking German right now. So, they should be very grateful to our great country,” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said, alluding to US help during World War II when Hitler’s Germany marched into France.
The putdown came in response to remarks by Raphael Glucksmann, a left-wing politician in France, who said “It (Statue of Liberty) was our gift to you. But apparently you despise her. So she will be happy here with us.” Leavitt also referred to Glucksmann as an “unnamed, low-level politician”, manifesting the disdain with which the Trump White House speaks of many foreign politicians not aligned with its MAGA worldview.
Blowback to the comments from the White House spokesperson came not from the French, but from many Ameri cans better versed in history.
“Such a shocking, insulting statement about an ally from anyone, let alone a senior White House official. I hope our @PressSec knows that it’s only because of the French that we have an independent United States of America,” Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia, said. Many others said it was German defeat at the hands of Russia on the eastern front that saved France.
Indeed, French help in freeing America from British colonial rule is consecrated right in front of the White House at Lafayette Park, with a statue of Major General Marquis Gilbert de Lafayette, who fought alongside George Washington at the Battle of Yorktown.
Washington DC itself is a French-designed city, laid out by Pierre Charles L’Enfant — buried in Arlington National Cemetery —on the lines of Paris and Versailles.
Lost on briefing cross-talk: French support for American freedom came in preference to India, where Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan beseeched Louis XVI, and later Napolean, for help against the British, only to see them choose to fund the Americans. Ironically, Lord Cornwallis who surrendered at Yorktown in 1781 later went to India and played a key role in defeating Tipu Sultan in the Battle of Srirangapatna.
A little spark of that history is preserved in the American national anthem, the star spangled banner, in which the line “rockets red glare” is a reference to Congreve rockets used during the bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor.
The artillery was inspired by iron-cased rockets used by Tipu’s forces during the Anglo-Mysore war.