French President Francois Hollande told journalists in Paris Tuesday that Donald Trump’s “excesses” make him “want to retch.”
Speaking to the French Presidential Press Association, Mr. Hollande said “democracy is at stake” in the U.S. presidential election and that more and more people are being tempted by “authoritarianism,” The New York Times reported.
“Should the American people choose Trump, there will be consequences, because a U.S. election is a global election,” Mr. Hollande warned.
The Socialist president criticized Mr. Trump’s “hurtful and humiliating comments” about Khizr Khan and Ghazala Khan, the Muslim parents of a fallen U.S. soldier, who spoke out against the Republican presidential nominee during the Democratic National Convention last week.
Mr. Hollande said Mr. Trump’s “excesses make you want to retch, even in the United States, especially when — as was Donald Trump’s case — he speaks ill of a soldier, of the memory of a soldier.”
Mr. Hollande previously lashed out at Mr. Trump last week after the business mogul said, “France is no longer France,” in reaction to the Islamic State killing of a priest in Normandy.
“France will always be France,” Mr. Hollande said Thursday, The Times reported. “It never gives up, because it still bears ideals, values, principles that are recognized worldwide, and it’s when you lower your standards that you are no longer what you are. That’s something that may happen to others, on the other side of the Atlantic.”
• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
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