UNITED NATIONS: The United States walked out of a UN Security Council meeting on Monday when the French ambassador took the floor, protesting his comments comparing the US to North Korea and other authoritarian states regarding votes on human rights.

Dan Negrea, a US representative to the General Assembly, slammed “disingenuous grandstanding” by Paris.

“There is a member of this council that will feign moral outrage and pretend to lecture the rest of us about every topic, whether it’s about the very conflict we’re discussing yet again today, or even those unrelated to international peace and security, like human rights,” Negrea said.

“That is why we walked out during France’s intervention” at the meeting, which focused on the war in Ukraine.

Such a walkout from the Security Council, the UN’s highest decision-making body where both France and the United States are veto-wielding permanent members, is very rare.

On Friday the United States was one of 10 countries to vote in the General Assembly against extending Volker Turk’s term as UN high commissioner for human rights, joining the ranks of North Korea, Russia and Nicaragua, among others.

“The US used to be a beacon of human rights. Not anymore,” the French mission to the United Nations in Geneva posted in English after Friday’s vote.

“Today, it stands alongside North Korea, Nicaragua, Mali & Russia, isolated. And the world no longer listens to it.” Negrea said in his remarks: “I remind them that it is the United States that remains the beacon of liberty for the world.

Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2026