WASHINGTON

The White House shot down Monday a demand from a French Member of the European Parliament that the US return the Statute of Liberty to France, saying it would "absolutely not" comply.

"My advice to that unnamed low-level French politician would be to remind them that it's only because of the United States of America that the French are not speaking German right now," spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters, referring to the US military intervention in World War II that proved decisive in ending Nazi rule over much of Europe. "So they should be very grateful to our great country."

The curt response comes center-left politician Raphael Glucksmann told a meeting of his party, Place Publique, that the gift from the French people should be return because the US has "chosen to side with the tyrants."

"We're going to say to the Americans who have chosen to side with the tyrants, to the Americans who fired researchers for demanding scientific freedom: 'Give us back the Statue of Liberty,'" he told supporters, according to the French newspaper Le Monde. "We gave it to you as a gift, but apparently you despise it. So, it will be just fine here at home."