Trump’s Paris talk criticized by Hollande
PARIS — The usually mild-mannered president of France pointedly reproached President Donald Trump on Saturday after Trump commented on the dangers of terrorism in Paris, reminding the U.S. leader of a cardinal rule in diplomacy: If you want to keep your friends, don’t criticize them in public.
“I think it’s never a good idea to show the least disapproval with respect to an ally,” said François Hollande, the French president, at the opening of an agriculture exposition in Paris. “I wouldn’t do that to an ally and I would ask that the American president not do that with regard to France.”
Hollande was responding to remarks Trump made Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, in which he implied Europe’s open borders had led to the terrorist attacks there.
Trump pinned his assertions on a friend named “Jim,” who he said had stopped going to Paris because “Paris is no longer Paris.” Trump said his friend had stopped traveling to the French capital four or five years ago, which was before the terrorist attacks there occurred.
“Take a look at what’s happening in Germany. Take a look at what’s happened in France. Take a look at Nice and Paris,” said Trump, who preceded these comments by saying: “We fully understand that national security begins with border security.” Trump continued: “I have a friend, he’s a very, very substantial guy. He loves the City of Lights, he loves Paris. For years, every year during the summer, he would go to Paris, was automatic with his wife and his family. Hadn’t seen him in a while. And I said, ‘Jim, let me ask you a question: How’s Paris doing?’ ‘Paris? I don’t go there anymore. Paris is no longer Paris.’ That was four years — four or five years, hasn’t gone there. He wouldn’t miss it for anything. Now he doesn’t even think in terms of going there.”
Hollande refrained from walking Trump through France’s tourism statistics.
Terrorist attacks in Paris struck the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in 2015, as did the attacks in and around Paris that killed 130 people, including 90 at the Bataclan concert hall. The attack in Nice happened in 2016.
Paris recorded a small decline in visitors after the 2015 attacks. The city had a 1.1 percent drop in hotel arrivals that year.