Roubaix, France – As the statements go, it is a great.
An imposing mural in France of the Statue of Liberty that covers his eyes is accumulating millions of in -line views with his blow to the immigration and deportation policies of the president of the United States, Donald Trump.
The street artist based in Amsterdam, Judith de Leeuw, described her giant work in the city of Roubaix in northern Roubaix, who has a large immigrant community, such as “a quiet reminder of what freedom should be.”
She said that “freedom feels out of reach” for migrants and “those who led the margins, silenced or invisible.”
“I painted her, covering her eyes because the weight of the world has become too heavy to witness. What was once a brilliant symbol of freedom now entails the pain of lost meaning,” Leeuw wrote in a publication on July 4 on Facebook, when the Americans celebrated Independence Day.
His representation of the statue of freedom, a gift from the French people at the end of the 19th century, has inspired some strong criticisms.
The representative Tim Burchett, a republican legislator of Tennessee, wrote in an angry publication in X that the work “disgusts me.” He said he had an uncle who fought and died in France, where US forces saw fight both in World War I and World War II.
In an interview with Associated Press, De Leeuw did not apologize.
“I am not offended to be hated by the Donald Trump movement. I don’t feel it. This is right,” he said.
The city was standing for the work, with its vice mayor in charge of cultural affairs, Frédéric Lefebvre, he told France 3 station that “it is a very strong and powerful political message.”
Since he returned to the White House in the midst of the anti-immigration feeling, Trump has launched an unprecedented campaign that has exceeded the limits of the Executive Power and faced federal judges trying to contain him. People from several countries have been deported to remote and unrelated places such as South Sudan and the small African nation of Eswatini.
Immigration is one of Trump’s strongest problems in public surveys in the United States.
The mural in Roubaix is part of a urban street festival backed by the city. Roubaix is one of the poorest cities in France. He was economically devastated by the collapse since the 1970s of his textile industry that was once the source that used to attract migrant workers from other parts of Europe, North Africa and beyond.
