When everything is going well, meetings between the Foreign Office and ambassadors remain private.The fact that the ambassador did not attend the meeting himself but sent a subordinate is a public affront.
What is strange is that the US ambassador's communication is not really intended for the French or French jews, but is merely a sign of support for Israel.
There is currently an Israeli media offensive in France followin President Macron's comments on the recognition of a Palestinian state. The Israeli state and its supporters are buying advertising spots on YouTube and Instagram to encourage French Jews to do their ahria with free money.
There are regular attempts to exploit anti-Semitic crimes or news stories to claim that France is hell on earth for Jews and that Israel is there to save them. But then again, we haven't yet seen Belgian commandos coming to kidnap people in France or Luxembourgers launching rockets.
The only new thing is that the US ambassador is taking part in this type of operation and behaving like an arsehole with the French Foreign Office.
A state can vocalize it's disapproval directly in a more direct and meaningful way using back channels and political ways, but this is more about giving a clear signal to everyone else.
It's PR basically.
"More about", I think, ignores the degree to which sending the message publicly to everyone else can be a very important part of sending the message to the obvious direct target.
> A state can vocalize it's disapproval directly in a more direct and meaningful way using back channels and political ways
Yeah, but "we are not allowing you to publicly save face by restricting our protest to private back channels" is itself an important way of communicating the severity of the message to the direct target.
Not all hate crimes involve rockets. I know a few Jews who grew up in France, and all of them report antisemitic incidents that happened to them personally, some physically violent. I’m talking mid-day paris, not some otherwise sketchy circumstances. They all fear being identified as jews in the streets of Paris.
Of course, that's not all Kushner said; he also apparently cast support for Palestinian statehood as antisemitic, which is obviously inflammatory. The more grounded in fact concerns about European antisemitism are, the more unfortunate Kushner's statement is.
Regardless, antisemitism exists in France and elsewhere. It's just not the case that France doesn't do anything about it. These crimes are punished. Maybe not as severely as one would hope, but by French standards, it's pretty serious.
But as parent comment mentioned, the current situation has little to do with that.
The letter is a clear attempt to bully an ally into US style speech suppression by using someone that has both official position and a personal Presidential imprimatur.
I see modern day French antisemitism as a bizarre union of right wing echt French, le pen-type and modern era Islamic migration from Francophone former French colonies. Former enemies united in a common hatred.
Despite Googling, I'm lost on what "ahria" means
They're saying Israel's currently spending advertising money in France hoping to convince French jews to move to Israel.
I haven't looked into the details, but Israel state and other entites promise housing assistance of up to €1,500 per month, Hebrew lessons, tax exemptions, etc. Literally free money.
Try to understand that.
Recalling an ambassador to their home country (the traditional phrase is "recalled for consultations with their government") in modern times usually means they're being replaced.
[1] https://www.riotimesonline.com/lulas-brazil-at-a-crossroads-...
That seems an odd clarification. Do you not believe a democratically elected leader represents a country? Every country has people who disagree with their leaders views, however this clarification on every statement would get tiring quickly.
After the new 50% tariffs, I doubt this remains true.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWzmk_0xzCA
Ultimately my takeaway is that diplomatic protocol can seem stuffy, but it exists for a very good reason. Tiptoeing around everyone's ego might seem excessive, but it's way cheaper than e.g. fighting a needless war.
Hard to blame Zelensky for not knowing protocol when he was a comedian elected as an outsider candidate, of course.
It can be serious. Worst case, an ambassador is summoned to receive a declaration of war. That's happened many times in the past, especially when travel delays meant wars took a long time to start. That's rare today.
This time, it's not that serious. Here's the statement by the foreign ministry of France: [1]
France learned of the allegations of the US Ambassador, Mr. Charles Kushner, who, in a letter to the President of the Republic, expressed his concern about the rise in anti-Semitism in France and reported an alleged lack of sufficient action by the French authorities to confront it.
France firmly refutes these allegations. The rise in anti-Semitic acts in France since 7 October 2023 is a reality that we deplore and to which the French authorities are fully committed to combating, as such acts are intolerable.
The Ambassador’s allegations are unacceptable. They contravene international law, in particular the duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of States as provided for in the 1961 Vienna Convention that governs diplomatic relations. Furthermore, they fall short of the quality of the transatlantic relationship between France and the United States and the trust that should result between allies.
Ambassador Kushner will be summoned to the Quai d’Orsay on Monday, 25 August.
Charles Kushner (Jared Kushner's dad, Jared Kushner being Trump's son in law, married to Ivanka Trump) and the US embassy sent their chargé d'affaires (a temporary ambassador while the real one is unavailable) instead. That can be read in several ways. Although it's a mild diplomatic insult to send a substitute, the effect is to calm the situation a bit. It helps that the substitute is a professional diplomat, not a political appointee. Le Figaro says the meeting went reasonably well, but that's what's traditionally said unless a declaration of war results.
This should go away as an issue unless Trump starts screaming about it on social media.
[1] https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/country-files/united-state...
[2] https://www.lefigaro.fr/international/convocation-de-l-ambas...
I would say "unless some further escalation directly follows"; while a declaration of war would be one case of this, there are others, such as expulsion of the ambassador, ordering the closure of some or all diplomatic facilities (embassy and/or consulates), downgrading diplomatic relations or withdrawing the host nations diplomats, or severing diplomatic relations altogether.
Said witness was his brother-in-law! Kushner hired a prosttitue to entrap him, filmed it and then showed his sister, how gross!
I guess diplomatic relations are severed until an ambassador returns to the host country.
[1] https://apnews.com/article/australia-iran-antisemitism-attac...
The nation whose ambassador was expelled may choose to downgrade relations formally, even if the other side has not, as its own protest, of course.
On the other hand, expelling an ambassador is a rare event and usually one piece of a fairly extreme diplomatic protest that involves other elements, either simultaneously or in close temporal proximity (fully cutting off relations or even declaring war would not be that unusual as accompanying actions.)
Summary: Netanyahu threatened Australian Prime Minister Albanese, and Albanese capitulated quickly.
One does not equate to the other.
What it does do however is undermine current Israeli domestic policy, which can be neatly summed up as keeping their PM out of prison by focusing on the external enemy.
So the non-semitic peoples butchering semites are accusing people trying to protect semites ( palestinians ) of being antisemitic.
Once you learn what a semite is and who these "israeli" settlers are, you realize how silly everything is.
Wars have started because of badly drafted or mishandled diplomatic notes. The Japanese diplomatic note announcing war was supposed to be delivered just before the attack on Pearl Harbor. The communications between the US and Saddam Hussein before the Kuwait war left Hussein with the incorrect impression that the US would not intervene if he invaded Kuwait.
Animats in a sibling comment has the details. See section i:
> i. Delivery from the Department to Foreign Embassies in Washington, DC[…]
Executive Secretariat InfoLink seems to be doing the electronic heavy lifting.
https://thewire.in/diplomacy/six-critical-questions-raised-b...
As a world we have to return to normal and respectful behavior instead of bullying everywhere. The US under Trump is just one thing: a bully.
With great power comes great responsibility. That is the standard men (and women) are hold accountable.
People haven't watched The West Wing etc and it shows
Those real summons are very rare.
This theatre is the way countries can negotiate and communicate peacefully
