US-France Tension at the Security Council, American Diplomats Walk Out After Human Rights Accusations

Representatives of the United States stood up and left the United Nations Security Council session while the French ambassador was speaking, a move aimed at expressing Washington’s displeasure with Paris’s criticism of a recent human rights decision.

The diplomatic spat erupted after the US sided with Russia and North Korea by voting against renewing the mandate of Volker Türk as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Immediately after this decision, the French diplomatic mission to the UN expressed a sharp stance on the X platform, writing that “The United States was once a beacon of human rights. Now it is no longer.”

For his part, US Ambassador Mike Waltz accused France of supporting an official who, according to him, has attacked democracies and turned a blind eye to authoritarian governments.

The diplomatic protest occurred as the Security Council was meeting urgently on the conflict in Ukraine and the French ambassador Jerome Bonnafont was delivering a speech. Dan Negrea, the American representative, warned that the US would continue with similar walkouts until France abandons what he called “offensive and frivolous language”.

Turk won a second term with the support of 144 votes, while 10 states voted against and 13 abstained, in a period that has increased frictions between the current US administration and the UN institution.

Meanwhile, Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for the United Nations, did not wish to go into details about the American delegation’s withdrawal, merely stating that the international organization asks all member states to honor the decisions taken.