The recent extension, this past Friday, of the mandate of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, has provoked a new diplomatic clash between France and the United States, after the French delegation to the United Nations in Geneva harshly criticized Washington's negative vote.
"The United States used to be a beacon of Human Rights. No longer. Today, it has sided with North Korea, Nicaragua, Mali, and Russia, isolated," denounced the French representation in a message disseminated on social media, referring to the group of countries that aligned against the renewal of Turk (to which Israel, Argentina, Burkina Faso, and Trinidad and Tobago also joined).
"The world no longer listens (to the United States) America is alone," insisted the French mission, after Washington publicly questioned the work of the Austrian diplomat, whom it accuses of conducting a politicized campaign due to his denunciations of Israeli crimes during the offensive in the Gaza Strip.
In response, the US ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, lashed out at the message coming from Paris. "It is disappointing, but not surprising, that this is how France deflects blame while voting to appease some of the worst human rights abusers," Waltz noted on social media, before attacking Turk again.
"France has voted for someone who has been lecturing free and sovereign democracies like the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel, while cozying up to the worst oppressors in the world," the US representative concluded.