US ambassador to France fails to show up for diplomatic summons

Politico Europe · Feb 23, 2026 · Collected from RSS

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News Foreign Affairs Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Noël Barrot blasts Charles Kushner over what he described as the U.S. envoy’s “apparent misunderstanding of the basic expectations of an ambassador who has the honor of representing his country.” Copy Link Copied Share via email Share on X Share on WhatsApp Share on LinkedIn Kushner found himself in hot water with French authorities over posts on X by the United States government weighing in on the death of 23-year-old Quentin Deranque. | Julien de Rosa/AFP via Getty Images February 23, 2026 10:33 pm CET PARIS — U.S. Ambassador to France Charles Kushner was a no-show Monday after being summoned over comments on social media about the death of a far-right activist earlier this month, according to a French diplomat. The diplomat, granted anonymity to adhere to French professional norms, said Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Noël Barrot had in turn requested that Kushner be barred from direct access to members of the French government due to “this apparent misunderstanding of the basic expectations of an ambassador who has the honor of representing his country.” “It is of course still possible for Ambassador Charles Kushner to carry out his duties and come to the Quai d’Orsay so that we can have the diplomatic exchanges needed to smooth over the irritants that inevitably arise in a 250-year-old friendship,” the diplomat said. The U.S. embassy did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment. Kushner found himself in hot water with French authorities over posts on X by the United States government weighing in on the death of 23-year-old Quentin Deranque, who was killed earlier this month in a fight on the sidelines of a political conference in Lyon. People affiliated with ultra-left groups have since been placed under investigation in relation to the incident. The X account of the U.S. Embassy in France on Friday translated and reposted a statement from the U.S. State Department’s counterterrorism bureau to the effect that: “Violent radical leftism is on the rise, and its role in Quentin Deranque’s death demonstrates the threat it poses to public safety.” Barrot said in a Sunday radio interview that France would not “allow this tragedy to be exploited for political ends.” “We have no lessons to learn, particularly when it comes to violence, from international reactionary [forces],” he added. Kushner, the father of U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and diplomatic envoy Jared Kushner, was also summoned last year after writing in the Wall Street Journal that France was not doing enough to combat antisemitism. “I’m here to do a job,” Kushner said in an interview with French broadcaster LCI after his first summons. “If President Trump wanted to pick the best diplomat to go to France, he made the wrong choice, I’m not the best.”