Charles Kushner has been temporarily blocked from meeting members of the French government after failing to attend a diplomatic summons.
PARIS — U.S. Ambassador to France Charles Kushner’s failure to show up after a diplomatic summons will “naturally affect his ability to carry out his mission,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said Tuesday.
Barrot said in an interview with FranceInfo that he requested Kushner be barred from meeting members of the French government, but added that the U.S. envoy could resume doing so once he answers the summons.
“When one has the honor of representing one’s country, the United States of America, one respects the most basic customs of diplomacy and responds to the summons of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” Barrot said.
Kushner was expected at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday evening after being summoned over posts on X by the U.S. government, one of which was reposted by the embassy’s account, weighing in on the death of 23-year-old Quentin Deranque, a far-right activist who was killed earlier this month in a fight on the sidelines of a political conference in Lyon.
Barrot said it was a “surprise” that Kushner did not appear, given it was a “diplomatic obligation.” The U.S. Embassy in France did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.
While Barrot said the incident would not affect bilateral relations between Washington and Paris, he has criticized foreign politicians — including Italy’s Giorgia Meloni — for commenting on an affair that he considers to be exclusively domestic and that carries heavy political consequences with less than a month to go before a series of local elections across France.
Barrot said that France would not accept foreign powers wading into domestic political debates “regardless of the circumstances.”