Poland Summons French Ambassador After Macron Calls PM a “Far-Right Anti-Semite”

The spokesperson for Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Friday that the French ambassador to Poland had been summoned following remarks made by French President Macron where he smeared Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecka as a “far-right anti-Semite.”

Warsaw’s announcement came one day after the Macron—during an interview with the establishment newspaper Le Parisien—took a retaliatory swipe at the Polish prime minister, who days earlier questioned his commitment to ending the war in Ukraine and criticized his phone calls with Putin, claiming that no one negotiated with Hitler, the Paris-based Le Figaro reports.

On Monday, the Polish prime minster asked: “Mr. President Macron, how many times have you negotiated with Putin? Did you get anything? There is no need to negotiate with criminals. Would you negotiate with Hitler, Stalin, or Pol Pot?”

The diplomatic row then escalated on Thursday, when Macron—without citing a shred of evidence—labeled Morawiecka a “far-right anti-Semite” who “bans LGBT people,” and previously accused him of interfering in French elections, noting his close relations with his chief political rival Marine Le Pen, who according to a new poll, has pulled ahead of Macron in the potential second-round run-off vote.

In recent months, the Polish prime minister and Le Pen have attended summits in Madrid and Warsaw which saw key figures from the European Right gather to discuss, among other topics, methods by which to oppose efforts—spearheaded by Germany’s left-liberal government—which seek to federalize the European Union.

Polish government spokesman Piotr Müller on Friday referred to Macron’s remarks as “incomprehensible” and attributed them to “political emotions that accompany every election campaign.”

“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,” Müller began. “I hope that this election campaign in France will calm down a bit, and then the President of France will speak differently and really stick to the historical facts.”