The statue of freedom was a gift from France to the United States in the 1880s, celebrating their friendship and the anniversary of American independence.
Pamela Smith / AP
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Pamela Smith / AP
A French politician has stolen in the United States to return the statue of freedom, suggesting that the country is no longer up to the values represented by the gift of the Green Teinse.
Raphaël Glucksmann, a member of the European Parliament with the progressive alliance of the socialists and the Democrats, said on Sunday during a party convention that he had had a message “to the Americans who had chosen to store on the side of the tyrants … who dismissed researchers for having demanded scientific freedom”.
“Give us the statue of freedom”, said with a smile While the crowd applauds. “We have given it to you as a gift, but apparently, you despise it. So it will be very good here at home.”
Lady Liberty – Full Name “Liberty lighting the world“- was conceptualized by the French anti-slavery anti-slavery activist Édouard de Laboulaye in 1865 to honor the centenary of the declaration of American independence and his friendship with France, whose support helped to win the American revolution.
After years of construction, shipping and assembly, the statue was officially unveiled in 1886 in the port of New York, where its raised torch and Words of reception registered greeted him millions of immigrants who arrived in Ellis Island at the end of the 19th and early 20th century.
He endured as a global Symbol of freedomPatriotism and democracy – and its absence – in the decades that followed.
“Ordinary people, American suffrages in the years 1800 and 1900 to Chinese students in the 1980s, raised the resemblance of the statue to call for greater equality, at the end of injustice and more enlightened societies,” said the National Park Service (NPS), which maintains the site.
Glucksmann’s comments arise at a time when the United States has been criticized in the country and abroad for abandoning some of these commitments, in particular by Immigration catchage And Alienate European allies. Glucksmann was a vocal critic of President Trump’s decision temporarily Suspend help to Ukraine While he defends himself from Russia.
Asked about the request of Glucksmann – which he has since confirmed was symbolic – during a Monday briefing, press secretary of the White House Karoline Leavitt said, “Absolutely not.”
“And my advice to this French anonymous French politician would be to remind them that it is only because of the United States of America that the French are not talking about at the moment, they should therefore be very grateful to our great country,” added Leavitt – an apparent reference to the American role, alongside other allied nations, in Release France from the Nazi occupation during the Second World War.
No one really brings back the statue
Glucksmann responded in a 10 -part thread on x Addressed to the American people, grateful: “I simply would not be there if hundreds of thousands of young Americans had not landed on our beaches in Normandy.”
But, he said, it was a different version of America-the one who “fought against tyrants, that did not flattered them”; Whoever “welcomed the persecuted and will not target them”.
“It was far away, so far from what your current president does, said, and embodies,” he wrote.
He specifically cited the “betrayal of Ukraine and Europe of the Trump administration, as well as its treatment of scientists.” In particular: a recently French university launched an initiative Welcoming American scientists whose work is untenable due to administration’s research reductions.
Glucksmann said his comments were designed as “an alarm clock”.
“No one, of course, will come to steal the statue of freedom,” he wrote. “The statue is yours. But what it embodies belongs to everyone. And if the free world no longer interests your government, then we will take the torch, here in Europe.”
The statue of freedom would be difficult to recall for France because it belongs to the United States government, According to UNESCO. It is also a national monument and a main tourist attraction, drawing 3 million visitors in 2023 only.
The United States had to work for the gift
An engraving representing the display of fireworks at the inauguration of the Statue of Liberty in 1886.
Universal History Archive / Universal Image Group via Getty
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Universal History Archive / Universal Image Group via Getty
While the statue of freedom was a gift, its creators thought that the project should be a joint effort: the French paid the statue, while the United States paid for its pedestal.
This involved a massive effort to collect fundraising in the two countries, through advertising, public events and sales of memories.
“Although wealthy individuals have contributed, it is the small gifts of hundreds of thousands of workers and children on both sides of the Atlantic who made the statue of freedom a reality,” said NP.
French sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi led the Design and construction Copper components of the statue – from the crown to the dress – over several years, while working with the American architect Richard Morris Hunt to design the pedestal of 154 feet.
The 151 -foot statue was gathered in France in 1884 and presented to the United States Minister to France the same year. Then came the challenge of really bringing him to the United States.
Bartholdi had selected Bedloe’s Island – now called Liberty Island – in New York as the statue site because he was visible for each ship entering New York. But to get there, the statue had to be dismantled in 350 pieces, transported to a ship of the French navy and suffered – by a construction team largely made up of new immigrants, according to the NPS.
The statue was finally unveiled a rainy day in October 1886, while 1 million New Yorkers were watching and applauding.
“When it was time for Bartholdi to release the French flag from the Tricolor who veiled the face of Liberty, a roar of rifles, whistles and applause resounded,” said the NPS.
A bronze plaque registered with “The new colossus“- A poem by Jewish American poet and activist Emma Lazarus- was added to the pedestal in 1903, commemorating the famous sentence:” Give me your fatigue, your poor, your huddled masses breathing for free. “”
The symbolism and resemblance of the statue have spread far beyond New York in the years. Replicas can be found worldwide and have even been exchanged by the United States and France.
The French living in the United States sent a replica of their homeland In 1889 for the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. The statue was placed on an artificial island of the Seine River in Paris, originally against the French presidential palace. He turned to face his American sister in New York in 1937.
Decades later, in 2021, France sent a second, Smaller replica of the statue – just 9 feet high – in the United States on a 10 -year loan to recall friendship and values shared between the two countries. “Little Lady Liberty” briefly joined her big sister in New York before going to Washington, DC, where she is exhibited outside the residence of the French ambassador.