French Officials Denounce Trump For Using Paris Attack to Promote Guns in NRA Speech: ‘Obscene Antics’
Survivors of the 2015 Paris attack joined with the government of France to strongly denounce the “obscene antics” of President Donald Trump after he used the terrorist attack to push the need for more guns and mock France’s strong gun control laws.
Speaking about the deadly attack during his NRA Convention speech on May 4, Trump mimicked the terrifying moments people were brutally wounded and murdered in Paris and suggested that if “just one patron had a gun” it would have been a “different story.”
“They were brutally killed by a small group of terrorists that had guns. They took their time and gunned them down one by one. Boom. Come over here. Boom. Come over here. Boom. If you were in those rooms, one of those people and the survivors said it just lasted forever. But if one employee or just one patron had a gun or if one person in this room had been there with a gun, aimed at the opposite direction, the terrorists would have fled or been shot. And it would have been a whole different story.”
In response to the president’s words, former French president François Hollande harshly rebuked Trump’s “shameful” remarks.
“The shameful comments and obscene antics of Donald Trump say a lot about what he thinks about France and her values,” Hollande in a statement in French obtained by France 24. “The friendship between our peoples will not be stained by this disrespect and outrageousness. All my thoughts are for the victims of the November 13 attacks.”
Philippe Duperron, president of the survivors’ association, also issued a statement saying that those most directly impacted were “outraged.”
“Alas, no weapon would have changed the outcome because there were suicide bombers wearing explosive belts who were going to blow themselves in the places they were attacking,” Duperron said.
In an additional response, French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Agnes von der Muhll also called for Trump to show some respect for the victims.
“France expresses its firm disapproval of the comments by President Trump about the attacks of November 13, 2015 in Paris and asks for respect of the memory of the victims,” the statement read.
While widely panned by both survivors and French officials, Trump’s comments drew applause from the NRA crowd.
Watch Trump’s remarks above, via Fox News.
[image via screengrab]
