French President François Hollande said Tuesday that Donald Trump’s “excesses” give those watching a “retching feeling,” adding his voice to the onslaught of criticism directed at the Republican candidate.
“His excesses end up giving a retching feeling, even in the US, especially when — as was Donald Trump’s case — he speaks ill of a soldier, of the memory of a soldier,” Hollande told reporters in Paris.
In a stark rebuke, he denounced Trump’s comments on Khizir and Ghazala Khan, the Muslim parents of an American soldier killed in Iraq, as “offensive and humiliating.”
Hollande’s comments follow President Barack Obama’s declaration Tuesday that Trump “is unfit to serve as president.” Obama also criticized Trump’s treatment of the Gold Star family, adding that his “basic knowledge of critical issues in Europe, the Middle East, in Asia, means that he’s woefully unprepared to do this job.”
Holland noted the international importance of the election, stating that if Trump wins, “there will be sequences because the American election is a global election.”
“Democracy is also a major issue considering the authoritarian temptation that we see arising,” Hollande said, adding that “that includes” the U.S.
Last week the French president angrily countered Trump’s statement following terror attacks in Nice and Normandy said that “France is no longer France.”
“France will always be France,” Hollande retorted, according to The New York Times.