French president rips Trump’s Paris comments

French President Francois Hollande chided President Trump on Saturday for saying that one of his friends – “Jim” – suggested that terrorist attacks had deterred him from taking his family to Paris.

“There is terrorism and we must fight it together,” Hollande said, according to Reuters. “I think that it is never good to show the smallest defiance toward an allied country. I wouldn’t do it with the United States and I’m urging the U.S. president not to do it with France.”

Hollande, answering questions at the Paris Agric fair, also offered a jab at U.S. gun laws, saying that France does not suffer from the same rash of mass shootings that America does.

{mosads}

“I won’t make comparisons but here, people don’t have access to guns,” he said. “Here, you don’t have people with guns opening fire on the crowd simply for the satisfaction of causing drama and tragedy.”

Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday, Trump recounted how a “friend” told him he won’t go to Paris anymore because of attacks by Islamist extremists.

“Take a look at Nice and Paris,” Trump said. “I have a friend, he’s a very, very substantial guy. He loves the City of Lights. He loves Paris.”

“For years, every year during the summer, he would go to Paris,” the president continued. “It was automatic with him and his family. Hadn’t seen him in a while, and I said, ‘Jim let me ask you a question: How’s Paris doing?’”

“Paris? I don’t go there anymore. Paris is no longer Paris,” Trump quoted his friend as saying.

Trump similarly irritated Swedish officials last weekend, when he referenced a nonexistent terrorist attack in that country and alleged that it was because of large-scale immigration.

“When you look at what’s happening in Germany, when you look at what’s happening last night in Sweden – Sweden!” he said during a rally in Florida. “Who would believe this? Sweden! They took in large numbers, they’re having problems like they never thought possible.”

Trump later said that a Fox News report linking immigration and crime rates spurred his false claim.