United States diplomats walked out of a United Nations Security Council meeting on Monday as their French counterparts were speaking, after Paris criticised the Trump administration’s human rights record and backed a second term for human rights chief Volker Turk. The move underlined the growing strain in relations between Washington and one of its closest European allies.
Issued on: 28/07/2026 - 21:54
4 min Reading time
The walk-out, during a meeting on Ukraine, came days after the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly supported Turk’s reappointment as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for another four years, despite opposition from the US. The vote on Friday was 144-10 in favour, with 13 abstentions. France supported Turk, while the US was among those who voted against him. As the UN human rights chief is not chosen by the Security Council, the US cannot use its veto to block the appointment. Washington can vote against Turk, lobby other countries and make its objections clear – but it cannot stop his reappointment on its own. The walkout, however, reflects more than a dispute over a single UN post. It comes amid wider tensions between US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron – as well as broader unease between the US and Europe over NATO, possible changes to American troop deployments in Europe and Trump’s stated desire to control Greenland, a territory belonging to NATO member Denmark. Trump has also complained that European allies did not help the US during the Iran war. Amid those tensions, Macron has sought to strengthen Europe’s military capacity and promote the idea of a nuclear umbrella, with France one of the continent’s two nuclear powers alongside the United Kingdom.
