France’s political class has largely condemned the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro by US armed forces, but President Emmanuel Macron has denounced neither the method nor the intervention itself, saying the Venezuelan people should "rejoice". France's leftwing parties have slammed his comments as a "disgrace".
Following early-morning air strikes on Caracus on Saturday, the US captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. The US administration says the deposed president is now in prison in New York awaiting trial on drug-trafficking and weapons charges.
In an official statement published on X, France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said that while Maduro had "gravely violated" the rights of Venezuelans, the military operation that led to him being grabbed "contravenes the principle of non-use of force, which underpins international law".
"No lasting political solution can be imposed from the outside", he said, warning that "the increasing violations" of this principle by permanent UN Security Council members "will have serious consequences for global security, sparing no one".
But on Saturday evening President Emmanuel Macron appeared to take a different line.
“The Venezuelan people have today been freed from the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro and can only rejoice,” he wrote on X.
“By confiscating power and trampling on fundamental freedoms, Nicolás Maduro inflicted a grave affront on the dignity of his own people,” Macron insisted, without mentioning the US attacks.
Macron’s entourage said shortly afterwards that “note had been taken of the American operation”, but France's leftwing parties roundly slammed the president's comments as a "disgrace" and accused him of pandering to the United States.
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A ‘dark day' for France
“Macron’s position is not the voice of France. He shames us," said Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of France’s hard-left France Unbowed party (LFI). "He is abandoning international law. A dark day for our country,” he wrote on X.
Manuel Bompard, a fellow LFI MP, said France was "reduced to congratulating Trump’s coups de force”.
Socialist Party secretary, Olivier Faure, also expressed indignation. “France is not a vassal state of the USA and our president cannot behave like a mere spokesperson for the White House”, he said.
Patrick Kanner, the head of the Socialists in the senate said Macron was "trampling this evening on our entire diplomatic history. A disgrace”.
Communist party leader Fabien Roussel described Macron’s position as an “ultimate disgrace”, adding France had been “downgraded to the rank of the USA’s 51st state”.
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Leftwing demonstration in Paris
More than a thousand people, some waving Venezuelan flags, gathered at Place de la République in Paris on Saturday afternoon to protest the US attack.
“It’s to express our revolt, our rage," said Maria, one of the protestors, carrying a Colombian flag. "We don’t agree with Trump’s invasion of Venezuela. It’s always the same – the biggest powers have all the power, and we only have the right to keep quiet,” she told Franceinfo.
Another demonstrator Harald, from Nantes, said he was worried about normalising attacks where a country can invade and depose a leader "a bit like what they did in Iraq.. and we see it too with China and Taiwan".
"If everyone allows themselves to invade for their own interests, there would be no limits any more,” he said.
“We know very well that all this is about oil, it’s not about anything else, it’s not about the Venezuelan people. Donald Trump doesn’t give a damn.”
Trump has said that the United States will “run” Venezuela until a “safe” political transition can take place.
Speaking at the demonstration, Mélenchon said it was necessary “to unequivocally demand the release and immediate return of Nicolás Maduro, free, to Venezuela”.
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French support for 'peaceful, democratic transition'
Venezuela’s Supreme Court has appointed Vice President Delcy Rodriguez as interim president.
Macron has said that Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia should help oversee the change in power.
Urrutia ran as a last-minute stand-in for opposition figurehead Maria Corina Machado, who was barred from contesting last year's election, and lives in exile in Madrid.
"The transition to come must be peaceful, democratic, and respectful of the will of the Venezuelan people. We hope that President Edmundo González Urrutia, elected in 2024, will be able to ensure this transition as quickly as possible," Macron wrote in his post on X.
In a subsequent message, he said he had spoken to 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner Machado.
"I fully support her call for the release and protection of the political prisoners of Nicolás Maduro's regime. Like all Venezuelans, she can count on France's support to carry the voice of a peaceful, democratic transition that fully respects the sovereign will of the Venezuelan people.
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'Sovereignty' never negotiable
Other French political figures were forced into a balancing act on Saturday – torn between the desire to denounce the US attack without appearing to support the leftist dictator Maduro.
“Not a tear for the plutocratic dictator Maduro, but we must realise that we are entering a world without international law, where the law of the strongest prevails,” said social-democrat MEP Raphaël Glucksmann.
Gabriel Attal, leader of Macron’s Renaissance parliamentary group, said he did not regret the departure of this “dictator”. He described the US operation as “a further sign that the world is now governed by force” and urged Europeans to adapt so as not to be confined to the role of “powerless spectators”.
The leader of the far-right National Rally, Marine Le Pen, said there were “a thousand reasons to condemn Nicolás Maduro’s regime: communist, oligarchic and authoritarian”, but that “state sovereignty is never negotiable”.
“To renounce this principle today for Venezuela, for any state, would be to accept our own servitude tomorrow,” she added.
The president of the rightwing Republicans, Bruno Retailleau, appeared more conciliatory towards Trump, arguing that drug trafficking requires “a firm response”, even if Venezuelan sovereignty “remains sacred”.
(with newswires)
