In mid-March 2025, a claim spread widely online that a French politician asked the United States to hand the iconic Statue of Liberty — that has been on display in New York Harbor for roughly 140 years — back to France.
Social media users on BlueSky (archived), Facebook (archived) and Instagram (archived) shared the rumor and attributed the demand to a French politician named Raphaël Glucksmann, who co-founded the French left-leaning political party Place Publique in 2018. He currently serves as the party's copresident.
Snopes readers also flooded our inbox with inquiries about the alleged request.
In short, the claim that Glucksmann said the U.S. should give the Statue of Liberty back to France is accurate and was covered by major news media outlets like The Associated Press (AP), CNN, Axios and NPR.
Glucksmann's demand occurred during a speech at a Place Publique convention held in Paris on March 15 and 16, which is available to watch on YouTube in both the original French and partially translated into English.
With a visible smirk, Glucksmann said: "We're going to say to the Americans who have chosen to side with the tyrants, to the Americans who fired researchers for demanding scientific freedom: give us back the Statue of Liberty. We gave it to you as a gift, but apparently you despise it. So it will be just fine here at home."
The Statue of Liberty was a gift from the French celebrating the centennial anniversary of the U.S. gaining independence from Britain and was officially dedicated on Oct. 28, 1886. Lady Liberty was designated a national monument in 1924 according to the National Park Service.
Asked about Glucksmann's comments during a news briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt shot back, saying the U.S. would "absolutely not" be returning the monument to France. She added: "My advice to that unnamed low-level French politician would be to remind them that it's only because of the United States of America that the French are not speaking German right now. So they should be very grateful to our great country."
Leavitt's comments allude to the United States being allies with France during both world wars, including the role the U.S. played in liberating France from Nazi occupation during World War II.
Glucksmann subsequently posted a thread on X (archived) explaining his intentions behind the statement and his response to Leavitt's comments.
The posts read:
Dear Americans,
Since the White House press secretary is attacking me today, I wanted to tell you this.
1. Our two people are intimately linked by History, the blood we shed and the passion for freedom we share, a passion symbolized by this Statue that was offered to the United States by France to honor your glorious Revolution.
2. As the press secretary for this shameful Administration said: without your nation, France would have "spoken German." In my case, it goes further: I would simply not be here if hundreds of thousands of young Americans had not landed on our beaches in Normandy.
3. Our gratitude to these heroes and their sacrifices is therefore eternal.
4. But the America of these heroes fought against tyrants, it did not flatter them. It was the enemy of fascism, not the friend of Putin. It helped the resistance and didn't attack Zelensky.
5. It celebrated science and didn't fire researchers for using banned words. It welcomed the persecuted and didn't target them.
It was far, so far from what your current President does, says, and embodies.
6. This America, faithful to the wonderful words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, your America, is worth so much more than the betrayal of Ukraine and Europe, xenophobia, or obscurantism.
7. We all in Europe love this nation to which we know we owe so much. It will rise again. You will rise again. We are counting on you.
8. And it is precisely because I am petrified by Trumps betrayal that I said yesterday in a rally that we could symbolically take back the Statue of Liberty if your government despised everything it symbolizes in your eyes, ours, and those of the world.
It was a wake up call.
9. No one, of course, will come and steal the Statue of Liberty.
The statue is yours. But what it embodies belongs to everyone.
And if the free world no longer interests your government, then we will take up the torch, here in Europe.
10. Until we meet again in the fight for freedom and dignity, we will be the continuators of our shared history and the protectors of our treasure: more than a statue of copper and steel, the freedom it symbolizes.
Though the claim that Glucksmann said the U.S. should give the Statue of Liberty back to France is true, it does not appear that it was meant to be taken literally.
As the AP noted, there is no chance it could happen anyway. The news agency wrote: "UNESCO, the United Nations' cultural arm that has the statue on its list of World Heritage treasures, notes that the iconic monument is U.S. government property."
A war of words regarding the Statue of Liberty is one of the latest rumors that Snopes has investigated pertaining to the Trump administration's relations with other countries. For example, we have debunked the claim that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum told Trump the U.S. should stop electing "rapists and criminals" and we have fact-checked whether Trump said on Truth Social that he would annex Alaska and Greenland.