French Prime Minister François Bayrou, on Monday, July 28, slammed a weekend trade deal between the United States and the European Union as a “dark day” and tantamount to “submission,” as other politicians poured vitriol on the deal. “It is a dark day when an alliance of free peoples, united to affirm their values and defend their interests, resigns itself to submission,” said Bayrou in a post on X, speaking about the accord concluded on Sunday.
US President Donald Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen struck the deal, which fixed a baseline tariff of 15% on EU exports to the US. Stock markets rose in Europe and Asia on hopes the agreement can avert a potentially damaging trade war.
French politicians slam the deal
French President Emmanuel Macron did not immediately react to the high-stakes agreement on Monday, which drew wider criticism across much of the French political spectrum.
“Ursula von der Leyen accepted yesterday the commercial surrender of Europe, to the detriment of our exporters, farmers, and industrialists,” Jordan Bardella, president of the far-right Rassemblement National party, wrote on X.
The day before, Bardella’s party colleague and three-time presidential candidate Marine Le Pen had criticised the deal as “a political, economic and moral fiasco.”
On Sunday, the Socialist Party said the EU appeared cast as a US “vassal” while radical left-wing La France Insoumise party leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon said France’s choice was one of “non-submission to the [US] Empire and non-alignment.”
Criticism from the center
Bayrou’s allies were also not convinced by the deal. “This is a defeat for the European Commission, which failed to create the power dynamics needed properly to defend European interests,” said Pieyre-Alexandre Anglade, a Macron ally in parliament and president of the Assemblée Nationale’s European Affairs Committee. Anglade blasted what he said was a “signal of weakness” sent “to our competitors [and] we must fight to reverse the situation.”
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A Bayrou ally in his centrist MoDem party, lawmaker Philippe Latombe, said, on X, that he “deeply regrets” a deal which “while it certainly avoids a trade war, comes at the cost of culpable subservience, a mortgage on our future, and the sacrifice of entire sectors of our sovereignty. It’s a bad deal, except for Trump.”
The French finance ministry told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that Finance Minister Eric Lombard and Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot would, on Wednesday, meet with major French economic stakeholders to discuss the “consequences” of the deal.
