Biden confuses Macron with former French prez Francois Mitterrand, who died nearly 30 years ago

United States President Joe Biden, on Monday (Feb 5) confused his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron with France’s former leader Francois Mitterrand who died nearly three decades ago, during a recent speech, the latest in his string of gaffes.

What did Biden say?

The US president and White House hopeful cannot seeminglycatch a break, with American voters worried about the 81-year-old being fit to serve a second term, and his approval being less than all recent presidential incumbents, his latest gaffe the video of which has now gone viral, will not help his case.

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Biden was addressing a crowd in Las Vegas ahead of the US state of Nevada’s primary on Tuesday (Feb 6) where he intended to say something that Macron had told him at a G7 meeting in 2020. However, the US president not only mixed up his French counterpart’s name but also misstated the name of the country he leads.

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“It was in the south of England. And I sat down and I said, ‘America is back,’ and Mitterrand from Germany, I mean from France, looked at me and said – said, ‘you know what – why – how long you back for?’” said Biden according to a White House transcript.

He added, “And I looked at him, and the — and the Chancellor of Germany said, ‘What would you say, Mr. President, if you picked up the paper tomorrow in the London Times, and London Times said, ‘A thousand people break through the House of Commons, break down the doors, two Bobbies are killed in order to stop the election of the Prime Minister.’ What would you say?”

“I never thought about it from that perspective,” Biden said. “What would we say if that happened in another democracy around the world?”

The discussion between the two leaders was said to be about the January 6 attack on the US Capitol when thousands of supporters of the former president and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump reportedly tried to stop lawmakers from certifying Biden’s win in the 2020 presidential elections.

The official transcript of the speech published by the White House notes Biden uttered Mitterrand but was supposed to say Macron, who has been French president since 2017.

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Mitterrand was French president from 1981 to 1995 and died in 1996.

Previous gaffe

The US president has made a number of such gaffes since he took office, but one of the most notable was in 2022 when he called on an Indiana Congresswoman who died recently in a car accident at a conference she helped organise.

“Jackie, are you here? Where's Jackie? I think she was going to be here,” Biden had said referring to representative Jackie Walorski, who had died a month earlier.

(With inputs from agencies)