{"id":652414,"date":"2025-12-24T12:18:29","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T12:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/652414\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T12:18:29","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T12:18:29","slug":"eu-france-condemn-u-s-visa-ban-targeting-former-eu-commissioner-activists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/652414\/","title":{"rendered":"EU, France condemn U.S. visa ban targeting former EU commissioner, activists"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Trump administration on Tuesday imposed visa bans on a former European Union commissioner and anti-disinformation campaigners it says were involved in censoring U.S. social media platforms, the latest move in a campaign aimed at European rules that U.S. officials say go beyond legitimate regulation.<\/p>\n

Trump officials have ordered U.S. diplomats to build opposition to the European Union’s landmark Digital Services Act (DSA), which is intended to combat hateful speech, misinformation and disinformation, but which Washington says stifles free speech and imposes costs on U.S. tech companies.<\/p>\n

The visa bans come after the administration’s National Security Strategy this month said European leaders were censoring free speech and suppressing opposition to immigration policies that it said risk “civilizational erasure”<\/a> for the continent.<\/p>\n

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the\u00a0five people targeted with\u00a0visa\u00a0bans\u00a0“have led organized efforts to coerce American\u00a0platforms\u00a0to censor, demonetize\u00a0and\u00a0suppress American viewpoints they oppose.”<\/p>\n

“These radical activists\u00a0and\u00a0weaponized NGOs have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states \u2014 in each case targeting American speakers\u00a0and\u00a0American companies,” Rubio said in an announcement.<\/p>\n

\"AU.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during his end-of-year news conference at the State Department in Washington on Friday. Rubio said Tuesday that the individuals targeted with visa bans ‘have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize and suppress American viewpoints they oppose.’ (Kevin Mohatt\/Reuters)<\/p>\n

Rubio did not name those targeted, but Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers identified them on X, accusing the\u00a0individuals of “fomenting censorship of American speech.”<\/p>\n

The\u00a0most high-profile target was French\u00a0former\u00a0business executive Thierry Breton, who served as the\u00a0European\u00a0commissioner\u00a0for the\u00a0internal market from 2019-2024. Rogers called Breton “a mastermind” of the\u00a0DSA\u00a0and\u00a0said\u00a0he\u00a0once threatened President\u00a0Donald\u00a0Trump’s\u00a0ally, X owner\u00a0Elon Musk, ahead of an interview Musk conducted with\u00a0Trump. Reuters was unable to immediately reach Breton for comment.<\/p>\n

Reuters reported in August that\u00a0U.S.\u00a0officials\u00a0were\u00a0considering sanctions\u00a0on\u00a0officials\u00a0responsible for the\u00a0DSA.<\/p>\n

French president slams decision<\/p>\n

French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday slammed the decision to bar the individuals.<\/p>\n

“France condemns the\u00a0visa\u00a0restriction measures taken by the United States against Thierry Breton and four other European figures. These measures amount to intimidation and coercion aimed at undermining European digital sovereignty,” Macron said on social media platform X.<\/p>\n

“Together with the European Commission and our European partners, we will continue to defend our digital sovereignty and our regulatory autonomy,” he added. <\/p>\n

The European Commission similarly condemned the move, a Commission spokesperson said on Wednesday, adding that the EU had requested clarifications from the U.S. authorities.<\/p>\n

“If needed, we will respond swiftly and decisively to defend our regulatory autonomy against unjustified measures,” he also said. <\/p>\n

Global Disinformation Index calls it ‘immoral’<\/p>\n

The\u00a0visa\u00a0bans\u00a0also hit Imran Ahmed, the\u00a0British CEO of the\u00a0U.S.-based Center for Countering Digital Hate; Anna-Lena von Hodenberg\u00a0and\u00a0Josephine Ballon of the\u00a0German nonprofit HateAid;\u00a0and\u00a0Clare Melford, co-founder of the\u00a0Global\u00a0Disinformation\u00a0Index (GDI), Rogers said.<\/p>\n

Hodenberg\u00a0and\u00a0Ballon said in a statement the\u00a0visa\u00a0bans\u00a0were\u00a0an attempt to obstruct the\u00a0enforcement of\u00a0European\u00a0law on\u00a0U.S. corporations operating in Europe. “We will not be intimidated by a\u00a0government that uses accusations of censorship to silence those who stand\u00a0up for human rights\u00a0and\u00a0freedom of expression,” they said.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for GDI called the\u00a0U.S. action “immoral, unlawful\u00a0and\u00a0un-American”\u00a0and\u00a0“an authoritarian attack on free speech\u00a0and\u00a0an egregious act of\u00a0government censorship.”<\/p>\n

Rogers said Melford falsely labeled online comments as hate speech or disinformation and used U.S. taxpayers’ money to “exhort censorship and blacklisting of American speech and press.”<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Center for Countering Digital Hate did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Melford, a\u00a0former\u00a0management consultant\u00a0and\u00a0TV executive, said in a video posted online in 2024 that she\u00a0co-founded the\u00a0GDI “to try to break the\u00a0business model of harmful online content” by reviewing online news websites to allow advertisers to “choose whether or not they want to fund content that is polarizing\u00a0and\u00a0divisive\u00a0and\u00a0harmful, or whether they want to steer their advertising back towards more quality journalism.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-652414","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115774513331050419","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}