The French are furious at Donald Trump’s remarks about the Bataclan. But what did the president actually say?

Last Friday President Donald Trump gave a speech at a National Rifle Association (NRA) event in Texas. Among other things, Mr. Trump described how differently things would have gone at the Bataclan restaurant — where Islamic terrorists massacred hundreds of people back in 2015 — if even one person at the event had been packing heat.

The French political elites — including all the talking heads on TV — were united in their sanctimonious outrage at the effrontery of the American president for saying such things. They demanded a public apology.

We hear from our French contacts that although French TV was filled with the fury of the bien-pensants, what Mr. Trump actually said last Friday was scrupulously omitted — the viewer just saw stills or silent footage of the president at the NRA.

So Vlad had a bright idea: subtitle the original footage of President Trump in French, as a public service. Then the French people can actually read and see what all the outrage is about.

Many thanks to Ava Lon (French to English) and Nathalie (English to French) for the translations, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Here’s an objective, unbiased (ahem) account of the brouhaha from CNN:

Trump angers France and Britain with his NRA speech

(CNN) US President Donald Trump took aim at two of America’s closest allies in a speech at the NRA convention, saying strict gun laws failed to prevent the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris and highlighting a purported increase in knife violence in London.

The comments provoked anger in both France and Britain.

France was especially incensed after Trump, while speaking at the gun rights convention in Dallas on Friday, pointed his hand as if it were a gun while describing how each of the victims in Paris was fatally shot.

“They took their time and gunned them down one by one — boom, come over here, boom, come over here, boom,” he said.

The French foreign ministry issued a statement Saturday after Trump’s comments.

“France expresses its firm disapproval of President Trump’s remarks … and calls for the respect of the memory of the victims,” it said.

Francois Hollande, who was the French President during the 2015 attacks, tweeted Saturday:

“Donald Trump’s shameful remarks and obscene histrionics say a lot about what he thinks of France and its values. The friendship between our two peoples will not be tainted by disrespect and excessiveness. All my thoughts go to the victims of November 13.”

Trump went on to say things might have been different had Parisians in the cafes under attack had been armed.

“If one employee or just one patron had a gun, or if one person in this room had been there with a gun, aimed at the opposite direction, the terrorists would have fled or been shot. And it would have been a whole different story,” Trump said.

Video transcript:

(Three separate clips were combined in this video. The transcripts are listed separately with the original times. Mr. Trump’s words are included in both the French translation and the original English.)

00:00   Are you asking tonight that Emmanuel Macron personally request an apology
00:03   from President Donald Trump? —If Jean-Luc Melenchon were president of the Republic,
00:07   we would have asked him to apologise. But you can’t make someone drink who isn’t thirsty. And you
00:10   don’t get apologies from a vulgar person. I’m afraid that we won’t be able to manage it.
00:16   Voilà. It’s his style: this brutality, this violence. But in truth France,
00:20   which is a large country, should say: Mr. US President, apologise!
00:24   It’s unacceptable, it’s intolerable, voilà. And I think that’s the least we should get.
00:28   How to say it? It’s not only — from what I understand— a basic disagreement with Mr. Trump, —
00:32   beyond what we can see here — that he is racist, violent and so on.
00:36   I repeat: France certainly shouldn’t — unlike Monsieur Macron, who
00:40   thought it was OK — consider that the person and his politics
00:44   wouldn’t be a problem.
 

 

00:00   [That] the American president, after having Emmanuel Macron
00:04   a couple of days ago, and showing — and it’s good!— this friendship between
00:08   the two countries, could have such a discourse, with those gestures on top of all
00:12   which, I think were received as a slap in the face and as
00:16   an attitude of an intolerable vulgarity; no , there it deserves
00:20   in fact, an apology and a very powerful call to reason
00:24   directed at the American president. You cannot behave like that
00:28   towards a friendly country with which you are engaged in a fight against the
00:32   terrorism. —Incidentally, there is a very official reaction from Quai d’Orsay which asked
00:36   Donald Trump to really respect the memory of the victims and the families.
00:40   Also the victims are very affected by that. The problem is — and you know it as well as we do —
00:44   Donald Trump gives very little importance to the foreign countries. Can you really imagine
00:49   apologies from the American president?
00:53   Well, first, I’m very pleased with French reaction and that from the Quai d’Orsay.
00:57   We will never understand the suffering
01:01   of the victims, of the families — we know them all — of the Bataclan, incidentally
01:05   of other sites which were affected by the attacks. We know, in fact,
01:09   you are right, that Donald Trump is thinking above all about the November elections
01:13   and about his own re-election. But, well, I think that we need to push the message
01:17   very clearly: [when] Americans were victims of attacks,
01:21   France stood by the side of the USA and [by the side of] all the
01:25   victims on 9/11; and also well afterwards, well, so
01:29   we need to transmit the clear message that whatever the reaction of Donald Trump, France cannot
01:34   allow to remain unanswered what is a true wound.
 

 

21:28   Parlons maintenant des armes à feu,
21:31   si vous le voulez bien.
21:35   Paris*, capitale de la France, possède la législation la plus restrictive qui soit en ce qui concerne le port d’armes à feu.
21:40   Leur président vient de quitter Washington. Emmanuel,
21:43   c’est un type bien. Personne à Paris ne détient d’armes à feu, personne.
21:48   Et nous nous souvenons tous des plus de 130 hommes et femmes,
21:53   plus le grand nombre de victimes qui ont été
21:56   horriblement blessées, et vous remarquerez que personne n’en parle jamais,
21:59   ils ne parlent que des morts.
22:02   Mais il ne mentionnent jamais ces 250 autres personnes
22:05   victimes de blessures
22:09   atroces. Jamais ils n’en parlent.
22:12   Mais ils sont bien morts dans un restaurant et autres
22:16   endroits à proximité…
22:19   Ils ont été tués de manière brutale par un petit groupe de terroristes
22:22   Ils étaient armés. Ils ont pris leur temps…
22:27   et ils les ont abattus, un par un.
22:30   BOUM! Viens par ici, BOUM! Viens par ici, BOUM!
22:36   Si vous étiez là,
22:41   si vous étiez parmi ces gens, et ceux qui ont survécu ont dit:
22:46   “ça a duré une éternité.”
22:50   Mais si un employé
22:53   ou même un des clients avait eu une arme à feu,
22:56   ou si une seule personne ici dans cette pièce
23:00   avait été là, avec un fusil pointé sur les agresseurs,
23:05   les terroristes se seraient enfuis ou auraient été abattus.
23:09   et l’issue aurait été bien différente.
 

* There are several towns and cities called Paris in the USA.

21:28   So let’s talk about guns,
21:31   shall we?
21:35   Paris, France has the toughest gun laws in the world.
21:40   [The] president just left Washington. Emmanuel.
21:43   Great guy. Nobody has guns in Paris, nobody.
21:48   And we all remember more than 130 people
21:53   plus tremendous numbers of people that were…
21:56   horribly, horribly wounded, you notice nobody ever talks about that
21:59   they talk about the people that died.
22:02   But they never mention that 250 people…
22:05   had horrible, horrible…
22:09   wounds. I mean, they never mention that.
22:12   But, they died in a restaurant and various other…
22:16   close proximity places…
22:19   They were brutally killed by a small group of terrorists.
22:22   They had guns. They took their time…
22:27   And gunned them down, one by one.
22:30   BOOM come over here, BOOM come over here BOOM!
22:36   If you were in those rooms,
22:41   one of those people, and the survivors said:
22:46   “It just lasted for ever”.
22:50   But if one employee
22:53   or just one patron had a gun…
22:56   Or if one person in this room…
23:00   had been there with a gun aimed at the opposite direction,
23:05   the terrorists would have fled or been shot,
23:09   and it would have been a whole different story.
 

22 thoughts on “The French are furious at Donald Trump’s remarks about the Bataclan. But what did the president actually say?

  1. As usual, the left (French this time) has its’ knickers in a twist – about exactly nothing. All the tears, teddy bears and flowers in the world are meaningless. I fail to see anything wrong in what DJT said, or did, it was the truth.

  2. It’s an old story.

    Left-winged so-called “intellectuals” can only be angry at the USA, Israel Christianity, white hetero men etc., but never at those who really harm them and theirs, and we all know who the real perpetrators are. It’s a typical example of the Stockholm syndrome, first observed in a country that’s nowadays even more twisted in their collective mind.

    This tendency is also exalted in France, which has been the centre of the West previously, hence also the centre of anti-western left-winged decadence. This already started in the 18th century with thinkers like Rousseau, leading to the French revolution. Voltaire. was one of the truly last great French thinkers.

    Previously Germany and South-Africa were also a culprits of hate in France, but since Schroeder and then Merkel Germany suddenly became an “ally”, and about SA we don’t need to say more. However, new culprits were easily found, like Russia, which was never forgiven dumping communism (and especially since Putin, who reinstalls Christianity as a moral basis for Russian society), Eastern Europe (since the brave stance of the Visegrad countries against the EU dictatorship) and Britain (since Brexit).

    France has some independent contemporary thinkers like Erik Zemmour, Pascal Bruckner, Alain Finkielkraut and novellist Michel Houllebecq, and a competent opposition politician in Marine Le Pen (who unfortunately is still being haunted by her less competent father), but these independent thinkers have a hard time in France, and this shows a lot.

    Instead of being angry at Trump, who did not insult any one, nor did not want to hurt any ones feelings, but only wanted to help the French by making them aware of the harsh reality that they face in the 21st Century, they should be angry at their own corrupt politicans, the mafiosi EU-bureaucracy and the left-winged “intellectuals” who sold their country. But because Trump is an American, a “conservative”, and uses, for French standards, a rather direct and “provoking”style, they won’t have it, due to their ‘sensitivities’.

  3. Exactly.nothing wrong with Donald Trump telling the truth.It makes a change from other Western leaders who see the truth as dangerous ,incendiary stuff that must be kept away from the man in the street because he is too stupid to react sensibly.

  4. Trump tells the truth. Again. How the dhimmis hate being exposed. They vie to be the last Catholic alive in the ghetto.

  5. The henchman of the French elite are angry, because this would push their well built narrative to another way. (The same reason they hate Hungary). The population suppose to believe, terrorism is the new normal and there is nothing anybody could do against it. And here comes the USA President, tells the obvious, that if you have armed citizens, you can successfully defend yourself and your community… and comes Orban, proving that keeping the garbage out helps maintain law and order.
    I can see why this is so upsetting…

    • The proper way to react to terror slaughtering is to protest it, like the Dutch males who marched wearing miniskirts to protest a violent incident against women.

      A march involving males wearing miniskirts is indeed a fearsome sight. Perhaps if enough males were disciplined enough to take part, we could notice a dramatic diminution in assaults on women. When males wear miniskirts, what reason is there for feral, cowardly migrants to limit their attacks to only women?

    • I can see why this is so upsetting…

      Your sense of sympathy is profound. Myself? I can barely squeeze out a tear. Defective narratives must be deconstructed if there is any hope of ever getting to the truth.

  6. That President Trump’s remark’s could not be received with due consideration, that he just might be right, and be a source of honest discussion rather than predictable knee-jerk responses is dismaying. But, then, having one’s illusory hopes shaken isn’t so pleasant.

    Better to come out of the fog over much over Europe now than later because then it will be horrendous.

  7. The reality is Jihadists exploit the opportunity given to them in “unarmed societies”, they know their targets are undefended lambs for a period of minutes until when Police armed response can arrive. Trump is factually accurate, though how he said it could have been better framed. But that’s Trump’s style like it or hate it.

  8. The other day I managed to get a point across to a lefty in relation to their other pet terrorist outfit known as the Provisional IRA.

    He asked me who would be most likely to win in an IRA v ISIS encounter. I told h the cold facts that the PIRA would get slaughtered not because they were incapable but because ISIS was better equipped, had military hardware including tanks, anti aircraft missiles, high tech advanced equipment, more money, had large levels of support from resident muslims plus leftists and had a very capable intelligence network.

    ISIS also managed to secure land and form it’s own state while the PIRA failed to secure any land from the UK

    ISIS in the UK have over 25000 members freshly trained, while PIRA had 3000 members at most and out of condition.

    It will take armies and air forces to blow ISIS out of our countries, indigenous paramilitaries will not be enough.

  9. Sounds like someone wishes they could make someone say “two plus two makes five”. It didn’t sound to be dramatic to me. It sounded a bit understated with regard to what actually happened.

  10. The Trogs and the Frogs are going to try and move Heaven and earth to prevent their subjects from EVER hearing Trump’s speech.

    They are quite content with the caricature they have built of him—why trouble their simple nappy-headed souls with the truth?

    So–down the old memory hole with this racist bigotry……………………….

  11. This gives us an excellent overview of how the “official” media deliberately misleads the people of the world, not just France, with its lies of omission, amounting to blatant propaganda in support of Islam.

    No publicity of the up close and personal mutilations carried out by these devout muslims at Bataclan either.

    In the final analysis, it’s wonderful to see where the fake news actually comes from.

    The lying filth of the mainstream media.

  12. No matter overwhelming evidenve that guns prevent more crime than they facilitate, why would a state ever want its citizens to be armed? This would always cause the state to be weaker and lose power. We are in a lucky historical anomaly in the US.

    • Well, there are other “anomalies” like Switzerland, where people keep even heavy machine guns home as part of their military duties, but murder rates are 5 per million… and half of the murderers are foreigners (and how much of the remaining half are “Swiss Albanian” or “Kosovar”, “Swiss Somali” etc is not reported). – “In 2016, there were 187 attempted and 45 completed homicides, for a homicide rate of 0.50 per 100,000 population. Of the 232 cases, 123 were committed with bladed weapons, 47 with firearms and 30 unarmed. Out of 217 identified suspects, 187 were male and 30 female; 115 (53%) were foreigners (62 foreigners with permanent residence, and 63 foreigners without permanent residence, including asylum seekers) and 102 (47%) were Swiss citizens. 19 cases (42%) of completed and 52 cases (28%) of attempted homicide were classed as domestic violence.[1]

      • You can look for big changes in Switzerland. Switzerland just changed its immigration laws to conform with the free movement diktats from the EU. Seems the EU was strong-arming the Swiss. Unless the Swiss conformed to EU requirements, the EU refused to allow Swiss scientists to participate in international science awards competitions.

        So, with the pressure from Swiss scientists, who couldn’t stand being excluded from the opportunity to receive plaques and letters of commendation from international groups, the Swiss capitulated totally.

        And, yes, you have to blink to read this right. The Swiss opened up their borders to third-world scum not even to get more money, but to get awards and recognition for their scientists.
        https://sciencebusiness.net/framework-programmes/news/switzerlands-exile-eu-research-cautionary-tale-uk

        How many Swiss scientists are experts in the genetics of Human Biodiversity (HBD)?

  13. This comment is from France.
    Believe me, quite a few people in France admire President Trump and think he is absolutely right about the Bataclan massacre. When our government says that ” France expresses its firm disapproval ” about Donlad Trump remarks during his NRA speech, its speaks only for itself. Many people here, including myself, would love to have a leader like Trump.

  14. “The French are furious.”

    Funny line of the weak, er, I meant week, I think.

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