(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump's claim at a pro-gun rally that France's strict gun laws prevented victims from fighting back during the 2015 terror attacks “is shocking and unworthy,” French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said Sunday on BFM TV.
“We don't make commentaries about the mass killings they frequently have in the U.S.,” Le Maire said. “I hope President Trump withdraws and expresses regret for these comments.”
Trump Friday told the National Rifle Association that the attacks, which he mimicked, would have been prevented “if just one person had had a gun.”
The French Foreign Ministry last night expressed its “disapproval” of Trump's comments in a statement. “Each country is free to decide its own legislation in regards to gun control” and “the statistics on victims of gun violence do not lead France to question its laws in this matter.”
Francois Hollande, who was France's president during the November 2015 attacks that killed 130 people attending a concert at the Bataclan theater in Paris, said in a post on Twitter that Trump's comments were “obscene and shameful.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Gregory Viscusi in Paris at gviscusi@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alan Crawford at acrawford6@bloomberg.net, Richard Bravo, Angela Cullen
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