American President Joe Biden confused his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron and his predecessor François Mitterrand, who died almost 30 years ago, in a campaign speech shared on social networks.
• Read also: In Nevada, Trump assured of increasing his advantage to run for the White House
• Read also: US Congress: Trump calls on Republicans to oppose Ukraine deal
• Read also: Biden continues his campaign in Nevada, with very mixed polls
Mr. Biden, 81, who was giving a speech on Sunday in Las Vegas, Nevada, described a reaction from his French counterpart at a 2020 G7 meeting.
In addition to getting the name of the leader wrong, he attributes the wrong nationality to him, before correcting himself.
“I said: America is back,” Joe Biden says in a video. “Mitterrand from Germany – I mean, from France, looked at me and said: you know, what, why, how long are you back?” he adds.
The White House later released a transcript of his speech, clarifying that the president meant to refer to French head of state Emmanuel Macron.
The video, where we see Mr. Biden hesitating and searching for words, has been viewed and shared thousands of times on X (formerly Twitter).
François Mitterrand led France from 1981 to 1995, and died in 1996. Emmanuel Macron has been president since 2017.
The age of the Democratic president is often presented by his opponents as a handicap for his re-election.
Mr. Biden has made embarrassing gaffes like this in the past, including in September 2022 by calling a deceased parliamentarian during a conference.
“Jackie, are you here? Where’s Jackie? I thought she was there,” he said, referring to Indiana Representative Jackie Walorski, who died a month before.
But his great rival on the Republican side, former President Donald Trump, 77, has not escaped moments of confusion either.
- Listen to Alexandre Dubé’s discussion with journalist Annabelle Blais via QUB :
In January, he mentioned his rival for the Republican nomination Nikki Haley instead of the former speaker of the House of Representatives, Democrat Nancy Pelosi.
Mr. Trump thus claimed that Nikki Haley was responsible for security at the Capitol during the violent attack by his supporters on January 6, 2021 against this institution.
An error that led Ms. Haley to question Mr. Trump’s mental capacity to return to the White House.
Mr. Biden also did not fail to respond to Mr. Trump’s gaffe. “I don’t agree on everything with Nikki Haley, but we completely agree on this: she is not Nancy Pelosi,” he quipped.
