President Donald Trump will attempt to “rig” the upcoming midterm elections in the United States, former French ambassador to America Gérard Araud has claimed. Araud, a longtime diplomat who previously served as French ambassador to Israel, the representative of Paris at the United Nations, and, finally, as ambassador to the United States from 2014 to 2019, has long been a critic of President Donald Trump.
However, the outspoken 73-year-old former ambassador drew attention for his outlandish predictions about American politics in the coming months. Appearing on the France Inter public broadcaster this week, Araud said that he expects President Trump to “rig the midterm elections… for example, by establishing a state of emergency under the pretext that there is violence.” The former ambassador then imagined that President Trump would deploy his “anti-immigration militia, ICE, at the door of the polling stations” so that Black and Latino voters would be discouraged from voting.
