France summons U.S. Ambassador Kushner over ‘unacceptable’ antisemitism letter

France’s Foreign Ministry summoned Charles Kushner, the U.S. ambassador to France, after Kushner wrote a letter accusing the French government of not doing enough to stop antisemitism in France.

In an open letter addressed to President Emmanuel Macron published in the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, Kushner said that antisemitic assaults had “exploded” in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, and he suggested that Macron’s government’s criticism of Israel and move toward recognizing a Palestinian state amid its war on Gaza had emboldened antisemitic sentiments.

“Today, many French Jews fear that history will repeat itself in Europe,” he wrote, urging Macron to forge a “serious plan” to root out antisemitism. Kushner, the son of Holocaust survivors, is also the father of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner; in the Sunday letter, he referenced his family links to Trump and how the two men share Jewish grandchildren.