By Gianluca Lo Nostro
PARIS, Feb 24 (Reuters) – Prominent French centre-left politician Raphael Glucksmann said on Tuesday the United States under President Donald Trump was no longer an ally of France and Europe, criticising what he said was Washington’s interference in European affairs.
“For 80 long years, the United States was a strategic ally of European democracies. Today, this administration is no longer our ally,” Glucksmann, a member of the European Parliament and potential contender in France’s 2027 presidential election, told the LCI 24-hour TV news channel.
“We are not U.S. states, and therefore the U.S. administration cannot interfere in European internal affairs, and that’s what we must address,” he added, calling on European leaders to show “extremely firm attitude toward the American administration.”
He did not elaborate on what he meant by interference, but a renewed push by Trump for U.S. control over Greenland, which is a semi-autonomous territory of the EU member Denmark, has prompted severe tensions in recent months.
France has also been at odds with the U.S., with disputes ranging from trade to foreign policy and the war in Ukraine.
Tensions mounted on Monday as France restricted U.S. Ambassador Charles Kushner’s access to government ministers after he failed to respond to a summons over social media comments made by the U.S. embassy on the killing of a French far-right activist.
Glucksmann has not officially announced whether he will seek the presidency but is widely regarded as one of the strongest contenders in the moderate left field.
A November Elabe poll showed him polling at 11%, double the support of Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure and ahead of former President François Hollande, though trailing far-right leader Marine Le Pen, centrist Edouard Philippe, and Jean-Luc Melenchon from the far-left.
In another poll released by Toluna Harris in October, Glucksmann gathered between 12% and 14%, same as Melenchon.
(Reporting by Gianluca Lo Nostro; Editing by Andrei Khalip)
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