US walks out on France at UN meeting over human rights remark

The US delegation walked out of a UN Security Council meeting on Monday as France was speaking about the situation in Ukraine.

The delegation made the move in protest at France’s comment comparing Washington’s voting on human rights to that of authoritarian states, over its opposition to giving UN human rights chief Volker Türk another four-year term.

The move reflects the growing tensions between the US and Europe and between President Donald Trump and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron.

Tension between the allies began with President Donald Trump’s threat to seize Greenland, and the subsequent refusal of European countries to support the US in the Iran war. In March, Mr Macron also proposed rebuilding Europe’s military, with France leading a nuclear deterrent effort to protect the continent from Russian threats.

Meanwhile, Mr Türk’s reappointment, despite US opposition, got overwhelming support, including from countries such as France.

UN member nations rejected the US proposal to delay the vote until the end of next week as well as a Russian proposal to extend Mr Türk’s term just until the end of the year.

Mr Türk was reappointed with support from 144 members of the General Assembly. Only 10 countries voted against it, with 13 abstentions. The US was among those that abstained.

Following the General Assembly meeting, the French Mission, in a post on X, said, “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.”

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Mike Waltz, the US ambassador to the UN, in response, 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 cosying up to the world’s worst oppressors.”

At the assembly meeting on Monday, US diplomat Dan Negrea, in reaction to France’s comment, said the US remains the beacon of liberty for the world, while adding that it “will not be affording them the benefit of listening to their politicised drivel until they renounce their condescending and disrespectful rhetoric.”