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    Friday, April 19, 2024

    Trump walks alone as Macron rips nationalism at WWI centennial

    President Donald Trump stands in front of headstones during an American Commemoration Ceremony, Sunday Nov. 11, 2018, at Suresnes American Cemetery near Paris. Trump is attending centennial commemorations in Paris this weekend to mark the armistice that ended World War I. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

    PARIS — In what appeared a direct rebuke, French President Emmanuel Macron warned President Donald Trump and other leaders Sunday that a dark new tide of nationalism, the label Trump recently embraced for his “America First” movement, ignores the painful lessons of history and threatens a fragile global order.

    “Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism,” Macron said as Trump sat, unsmiling, with more than 100 other world leaders at a commemoration at the Arc de Triomphe of the moment when World War I ended 100 years ago.

    “Old demons are coming back to the surface,” Macron said, citing the dangerous resurgence of the ethnic and religious hatred that led to that devastating conflict — and the cataclysmic global war that followed three decades later.

    Macron’s address reflected the widespread anger and concern in Europe about Trump’s belligerent rhetoric and policies, which have put his administration at odds with America’s closest allies and challenged the alliances and institutions built to ensure peace since the end of World War II.

    Trump’s go-it-alone approach on climate change, the Iran nuclear deal and trade, among other issues, was symbolized when he walked apart from the dozens of world leaders who marched together under black umbrellas down the rain-soaked Champs-Elysees for the Armistice Day ceremony.

    Aides said he had arrived separately in a motorcade for security reasons. Despite the November chill and the security cordon, a topless woman with “fake,” “peace” and other words written on her body managed to run near Trump’s vehicle.

    Trump also attended a lunch Sunday with world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin. The event was closed to the press.

    Trump and Putin are expected to meet this month at a Group of 20 summit in Argentina.

    Trump left Paris late Sunday to fly back to Washington, skipping a three-day forum that Macron hosted with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in an effort to galvanize global action on shared challenges, including climate change.

    Merkel warned against taking peace for granted. “We have to work for it,” she said. She also made a veiled dig at Trump’s attacks on multilateral organizations, saying “unwillingness to compromise” can have deadly consequences.

    Macron’s address Sunday effectively was a rebuttal to Trump’s September address to the United Nations General Assembly, where he defined globalism as the opposite of patriotism.

    Europe’s liberal democratic leaders have felt under threat from a rising tide of right-wing populist nationalism in Poland, Hungary, Russia and elsewhere, even as Trump has challenged the trans-Atlantic alliance. Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, followed by Trump’s election victory in 2016, cemented that anxiety.

    The EU now faces unprecedented strains from a backlash to a migrant flood from Africa and the Middle East, a decade-long financial crisis that has worsened inequality in many areas, and a bevy of far-right politicians who have exploited ancient ethnic divisions and fears.

    Merkel had been the public face of European resistance to the revival of right-wing nationalism but she recently announced plans to resign as her party’s leader and ease out of public life in the next few years.

    Macron, who tried to charm Trump last year by inviting him to a Bastille Day parade and dinner atop the Eiffel Tower, has increasingly assumed Merkel’s role. His relationship with Trump, once filled with friendly pats and body hugs, gave way this weekend to polite handshakes and tight-lipped smiles.

    “It’s become clear over the last few weeks that Macron has given up on his effort to become Trump’s best friend in Europe and I think he’s also seeing a leadership vacuum in Europe, particularly with Merkel’s decision to withdraw from politics,” said Alexander Vershbow, who was U.S. ambassador to NATO under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, worked in the Obama administration and also was NATO’s deputy secretary general.

    Macron’s speech, he said, was “very in-your-face for the supposedly unifying purpose of this commemoration, but it reflects the strong belief of Macron and others that Trump is abandoning American leadership and trans-Atlantic solidarity.”

    As U.S. president, Trump sat front row center at the centennial ceremony Sunday. He received a handshake from Macron and a thumbs-up from Putin under a temporary structure that protected them from an onslaught of rain.

    But Macron’s speech was not designed to comfort Trump, who sat between his wife, Melania, and Merkel.

    Macron recounted the suffering inflicted by World War I — more than 16 million soldiers and civilians killed, millions more maimed and wounded, and the shelling, slaughter and poison gas that laid waste to vast swaths of Europe, “the scars of which are still visible.”

    The lesson of World War I, he said, “cannot be rancor and resentment against other nations and it cannot be allowing the past to be forgotten.”

    Macon did not name Trump or his “America First” stand. But he cast nationalism as a dangerous and selfish ideology, one that led to two world wars.

    “By saying, ‘Our interests first, who cares about the others?,’ we erase what a nation holds dearest, what gives it life, what gives it grace, and what is essential for its moral values,” Macron said.

    Trump gave no public response to the speech. Though he sent a critical Twitter post about Macron as he landed here Friday night, Trump posted Sunday that he had attended a “beautiful ceremony” and thanked Macron.

    Thomas Wright, director of the Center on the United States and Europe at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution in Washington, said Macron’s rebuke might have been “too subtle for the president to notice personally,” part of a pattern among Western leaders who “reject the concept of Trump but not the man himself.”

    “They think he’s ridiculous, but they are also frightened of him and the ideology he represents,” Wright said.

    Macron’s speech was the centerpiece of a memorial service that commemorated the moment the guns went silent in 1918 — on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month — after four years of unremitting carnage.

    Cellist Yo Yo Ma joined the French violinist Renaud Capucon for a mournful Ravel sonata. High school students read testimonials from Allied soldiers recounting tears and exhilaration from the war’s end. Beninese singer Angelique Kidjo sang a song of devotion and gratitude.

    Trump and other leaders did not speak at the ceremony, but Trump spoke later at a Veterans Day commemoration at the Suresnes American Cemetery just outside of Paris.

    Trump, who stood in a light rain without an umbrella, said he had come to “pay tribute to the brave Americans who gave their last breath in that mighty struggle.”

    The ceremony, on a hilltop with distant views of the Eiffel Tower, featured French and American flags and a bugler playing taps for more than 1,500 U.S. soldiers interred here. Before speaking, Trump wandered briefly between the spare white crosses that line the field.

    On Saturday, Trump was widely mocked for canceling a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, about 60 miles northeast of Paris, which holds the remains of several thousand U.S. soldiers who died in the battle of Belleau Wood. The White House blamed rain for scrubbing the visit.

    French President Emmanuel Macron and French Premier Edouard Philippe attend a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France, as part of the commemorations marking the 100th anniversary of the armistice ending World War I, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. (Ludovic Marin/Pool Photo via AP)
    U.S. President Donald Trump visits the Suresnes American Cemetery, near Paris, as part of the Paris commemoration ceremony for Armistice Day, 100 years after the end of the First World War, France, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. (Christian Hartmann/Pool Photo via AP)
    People wearing a Donald Trump mask, left, and an Emmanuel Macron mask act up for the cameras during an anti-Trump gathering in Republique square in Paris, Sunday Nov. 11, 2018. President Donald Trump joined other international leaders in Paris to mark the 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
    A woman holds up a placard during an anti-Trump gathering in Republique square in Paris, Sunday Nov. 11, 2018, mocking President Donald Trump's non-attendance at a memorial event on Saturday. President Donald Trump joined other international leaders in Paris to mark the 100th anniversary of the Armistice that ended World War I. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
    German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron arrive at the Paris Peace Forum as part of the commemoration ceremony for Armistice Day in Paris, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. International leaders attended a ceremony in Paris on Sunday at mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias)
    President Donald Trump stands among the headstones during an American Commemoration Ceremony, Sunday Nov. 11, 2018, at Suresnes American Cemetery near Paris. Trump is attending centennial commemorations in Paris this weekend to mark the armistice that ended World War I. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

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