Trump’s attack on terror anniversary ‘lacked decency’

EMMANUEL MACRON, the French president, last night hit back at Donald Trump’s Twitter attack against his call for a “real European army” by saying: “To be an ally is not to be a vassal”.

But he denied there was tension between France and America. “At every moment in our history we have been allies,” the 40-year old leader said in an interview from France’s Charles de Gaulle nuclear aircraft carrier.

No sooner had the US president touched down after a weekend attending centenary commemorations of the Armistice in Paris than he issued a flurry of undiplomatic missives on Twitter.

In them, he mocked Mr Macron’s low approval ratings and threatened a trade war with France over wine tariffs. He also laid into his defence policy.

“Emmanuel Macron suggests building its own army to protect Europe against the US, China and Russia,” tweeted Mr Trump.

“But it was Germany in World Wars One and Two – How did that work out for France? They were starting to learn German in Paris before the US came along. Pay for Nato or not!”

Mr Macron said: “I believe in our sovereignty and in European sovereignty. I want us to be autonomous in the fields of surveillance, cyber attacks and all aspects of our army, and we cannot depend on (others), including the United States.”

Earlier, French government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux had accused the US president of lacking “common decency” by issuing the tweets on the third anniversary of the Paris terror attacks in which 130 people died.

And Olivier Faure, head of the French Socialist Party, said he sympathised with the president for having to endure Mr Trump’s “verbal diarrhoea”.