French President Francois Hollande endorsed Hillary Clinton for U.S. president Thursday, saying a Donald Trump presidency “would complicate relations between Europe and the U.S.”
“The best thing the Democrats can do is to get Hillary Clinton elected,” the socialist president said in an interview with France’s Les Echos newspaper, Politico reported.
Mr. Holland compared Mr. Trump’s policies on immigration to rhetoric from Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s National Front party, and other European nationalist leaders. Ms. Le Pen has called for France to follow in the U.K.’s footsteps and exit the European Union.
“[Mr. Trump’s] slogans are barely different from the extreme right in Europe and in France,” Mr. Hollande said.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee incites “fear of waves of immigrants, the stigmatization of Islam, the questioning of representative democracy and the denunciation of elites,” even as the billionaire mogul “is the most obvious representation” of that which he denounces, Mr. Hollande said, according to a translation to Politico.
“Those who say that Donald Trump could not possibly become the next president of the United States are the same ones who thought that Brexit would never be voted in,” he said.
Asked if he believed that Mr. Trump as president would be dangerous, Mr. Hollande answered “yes,” Agence France-Presse reported.
• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
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