Trump jibe angers UK and France
US President Donald Trump has caused anger in France and Britain by suggesting looser gun laws could have helped prevent deadly attacks in Paris in 2015 and linking knife crime in London to a handgun ban.
In a speech to the National Rifle Association on Friday, Trump mimicked the shooting of victims in the Paris rampage and said if civilians had been armed “it would have been a whole different story”.
The French government issued its strongest criticism of Trump since he took office and one minister urged the leader to apologise, at a time when President Emmanuel Macron has been reinforcing bilateral ties following a state visit.
“France expresses its firm disapproval of President Trump’s comments about the Paris attacks on November 13 2015 and demands that the memory of the victims be respected,” the foreign office said.
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said he hoped Trump “would come back on his words and express regret”.
“They took their time and gunned them down one by one. Boom! Come over here. Boom! Come over here. Boom!,” Trump said, using his hands in a gun gesture.
Francois Hollande, who was French president at the time, said on Twitter Trump’s remarks were shameful and obscene.
Trauma surgeons in London, meanwhile, said Trump had missed the point when, in the same speech, he linked knife crime there to an absence of guns.
Comments by Trump have caused upset before in Britain.
Relations with Prime Minister Theresa May cooled last year after she criticised him for retweeting anti-Islam videos by a British far-right group.
Meanwhile, Senator John McCain, 81, and battling brain cancer, has made clear he does not want Trump to attend his funeral, US media reported on Saturday.
McCain, a respected senator from Arizona who has had a turbulent relationship with Trump, instead wants Vice-President Mike Pence to represent the White House, The New York Times and NBC News said.
McCain and Trump have had a rough relationship, particularly during the 2016 presidential primary, when Trump said McCain – a POW for years in Vietnam -- was not really a war hero because he was captured.
Last year, Trump slammed McCain for a “no” vote that helped doom a key bill to repeal Obamacare – the health care reforms passed into law under president Barack Obama. – AFP