French MEP Raphael Glucksmann has called on the US to return the Statue of Liberty to Paris because Washington no longer represents the ideas it carries. “We are going to say to Americans who have decided to side with tyrants: “Give us back the Statue of Liberty. We gave it to you as a gift, but you seem to despise it,” the French politician said during a speech at the convention of the Place Publique (Public Place) party. Glucksmann is known as one of the supporters of helping Ukraine in its war with Russia. He has previously repeatedly criticized U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration for its rapprochement with Moscow.
The Statue of Liberty is located in the United States on Liberty Island, southwest of Manhattan. The sculpture was made in the late 19th century in France and donated to the United States. The statue weighing 225 tons in disassembled form was sent to New York in 1885, and in the following year it was opened. It became a national monument on October 15, 1924. The idea of the monument was proposed by Edouard René Lefebvre de Laboulaye. The monument depicts the heroine of the sonnet “The New Colossus” by the poet Emma Lazarus: she is propping up the broken fetters with her foot, clutching a torch in her right hand, and in her left hand – a tablet with the date of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence of the United States carved on it: JULY IV M DCCL XXVI (July 4, 1776). Once erected, the statue became a symbol of hope for a better life for millions of migrants who were waiting for permission to enter the United States. In 1984, the monument was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
