France’s ambassador to Poland was summoned by the Polish foreign ministry on Friday after Emmanuel Macron accused the country’s prime minister of being a “far-right anti-Semite”.
Macron said Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki was “a far-right anti-Semite, who bans the LGBT” in an interview with Le Parisien after having already accused him of “interfering in the French political campaign”, pointing to Morawiecki’s closeness to French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen.
Morawiecki had earlier this week criticised the French president’s several hours of phone calls with Vladimir Putin.
“President Macron, how many times have you negotiated with Putin? What have you achieved?” the Polish premier said. “Would you negotiate with Hitler, with Stalin, with Pol Pot?”
The Polish government spokesman on Friday called President Macron’s remarks “incomprehensible” and blamed them on the “political emotions that accompany every election campaign”.
“However, at present, talking about the prime minister of the Polish government in the context of anti-Semitism is, quite simply, a lie, it has nothing to do with the facts,” Piotr Müller told reporters.
“I hope this election campaign in France will calm down a bit, and then the President of France will speak differently and really stick to historical facts,” he added.