US accused France of “condescending” rhetoric over its human rights stances

United States diplomats walked out of a United Nations Security Council meeting on Russia’s war against Ukraine as France’s delegation took the floor.

The walkout on Monday came two days after an online exchange between US and French officials over Washington voting against renewing the four-year term of UN human rights chief Volker Turk.

France’s UN Mission in Geneva wrote on Saturday that the US was no longer a “beacon of human rights” and stood isolated alongside North Korea, Nicaragua, Mali and Russia.

US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz replied on X that France had voted for a rights chief who “has been lecturing free, sovereign democracies like the United States, the UK, and Israel, while cozying up to the world’s worst oppressors”.

After the walkout, Dan Negrea, an alternate US representative, told the council that his delegation would keep walking out until France renounced its “condescending and disrespectful rhetoric”.

France’s ambassador, Jerome Bonnafont, did not mention the walkout when he spoke, saying France was working to preserve the UN’s independence and its capacity to act.

Turk, who has criticised violations of international law by Israel and the US in Palestine and Iran, was reappointed by a UN General Assembly vote of 144 in favour, 10 against and 13 abstentions.

The administration of US President Donald Trump has cut funding to UN agencies and withdrawn from dozens of UN entities since 2025. It had also threatened to reassess its engagement over Turk’s mandate.

Washington and Paris have also clashed over NATO spending, trade policy and Trump’s threats to occupy Greenland, a territory of NATO member Denmark.

France, along with other European states, has also drawn Trump’s ire for refusing direct participation in the US-Israel war on Iran.