United States diplomats walked out of a United Nations Security Council meeting on Monday as their French counterparts were speaking, after Paris criticised the Trump administration’s human rights record and backed a second term for human rights chief Volker Turk. The move underlined the growing strain in relations between Washington and one of its closest European allies.
The walk-out, during a meeting on Ukraine, came days after the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly supported Turk’s reappointment as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for another four years, despite opposition from the US.
The vote on Friday was 144-10 in favour, with 13 abstentions. France supported Turk, while the US was among those who voted against him.
As the UN human rights chief is not chosen by the Security Council, the US cannot use its veto to block the appointment. Washington can vote against Turk, lobby other countries and make its objections clear – but it cannot stop his reappointment on its own.
The walkout, however, reflects more than a dispute over a single UN post.
It comes amid wider tensions between US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron – as well as broader unease between the US and Europe over NATO, possible changes to American troop deployments in Europe and Trump’s stated desire to control Greenland, a territory belonging to NATO member Denmark. Trump has also complained that European allies did not help the US during the Iran war.
Amid those tensions, Macron has sought to strengthen Europe’s military capacity and promote the idea of a nuclear umbrella, with France one of the continent’s two nuclear powers alongside the United Kingdom.
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'French grandstanding'
The trigger for Monday’s walk-out was a post on social media platform X by France’s UN mission in Geneva, criticising Washington’s opposition to Turk’s reappointment.
“The US used to be a beacon of human rights. Not anymore. Today, it stands alongside North Korea, Nicaragua, Mali & Russia, isolated. And the world no longer listens to it,” the French mission wrote last Friday.
Mike Waltz, the US ambassador to the UN, responded by accusing France of coddling “some of the worst human rights abusers” and voting for someone who, he said, had been “lecturing” democracies such as the US, the UK and Israel while “cosying up to the world’s worst oppressors”.
After Monday’s incident, deputy US ambassador Dan Negrea accused France of feigning “moral outrage” and pretending to lecture the world on every issue, including human rights.
“The United States has stood by France in every conflict where its freedom has been imperiled,” he said, adding that Washington had tolerated French “grandstanding” out of “a sense of camaraderie and mutual respect”.
But, he said, that patience had run out. “Today, I remind them that it is the United States that remains the beacon of liberty for the world,” Negrea said.
“As such, we will not be affording them the benefit of listening to their politicised drivel until they renounce their condescending and disrespectful rhetoric and behave in a manner commensurate with their seat on this council.”
France’s UN ambassador, Jerome Bonnafont, did not refer directly to the walk-out when he later took the floor.
Instead, he noted that France – which helped the US in its war of independence – had taken part in celebrations marking America’s 250th anniversary on 4 July.
“The United Nations was created with the goal of working towards international peace and security, human rights and development,” Bonnafont said.
“All of that forms the spirit in which France works within the United Nations ... to preserve this institution, its independence, its ability to act in service of the charter and act to serve human rights and peace.”
Turk at centre of dispute
Turk’s role as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is, by its nature, sensitive. The job requires him to speak out against abuses committed by the governments that make up the UN’s membership – including the most powerful ones.
He has sharply criticised both Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s war in Gaza.
He also urged a “massive rethink” of US immigration policy before the World Cup, warning against “racial profiling, surveillance and immigration enforcement”.
In a recent interview with RFI, Turk defended the importance of international law at a time of worsening conflicts and growing pressure on civilians, from Iran to Sudan.
International law remained “our compass”, he said, adding that violations by powerful states did not make the rules obsolete. “If someone drives through a red light or drives at much higher speeds, that does not mean the Highway Code is no longer valid,” he said.
(with newswires)
