US diplomats walked out of the chamber when the French delegation rose to speak during a UN Security Council meeting regarding Russia’s war in Ukraine.
This walkout occurred yesterday, Monday.
The incident took place two days after a virtual dispute between US and French officials over the vote to renew the four-year term of UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk.
Earlier, on Saturday, the French mission to the UN in Geneva stated that the US is no longer a “beacon of human rights.” They noted that the US now stands isolated alongside nations like North Korea, Nicaragua, Mali, and Russia.
In response to the French statement, Mike Waltz, the US Ambassador to the UN, wrote on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) that France had voted in favor of a human rights chief who “lectures free, sovereign democracies like the US, the UK, and Israel, while cozying up to the world’s worst oppressors.”
Following Monday’s walkout, Dan Negrea, the US Alternate Representative to the UN, informed the Security Council that the US delegation would continue to leave the chamber in this manner until France retracted its “insulting and disrespectful remarks.”
However, French Ambassador Jérôme Bonnafont made no comment regarding the walkout during his address. He stated that France is committed to upholding the independence and operational capacity of the UN.
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk has sharply criticized the US and Israel for violations of international law in Palestine and Iran. He was recently reappointed by the UN General Assembly with a vote of 144 to 10, with 13 countries abstaining.
The administration of US President Donald Trump had previously reduced funding to various UN agencies and withdrawn from several of them starting in 2025. Additionally, Washington had threatened to reconsider its participation regarding the extension of Türk’s term. A long-standing rift persists between Washington and Paris, centering on issues such as NATO funding, trade policy, and Trump’s threat to acquire Danish-owned Greenland. Furthermore, the Trump administration is aggrieved with France and other European nations for refusing to directly participate in a US-Israel war against Iran.
