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President Donald Trump traveled thousands of kilometers to Paris on Friday to participate in several events commemorating the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War.
But a little rain Saturday prevented him from attending any of the solemn gatherings – and his no-show sparked a chorus of contempt.
Trump ignored a planned visit to the American cemetery of Aisne-Marne, with a statement from the White House citing "scheduling and logistical problems caused by weather conditions".
The cemetery is the resting place for many of the 1,800 American soldiers killed at the Battle of Belleau Wood.
In his place, Trump sent a delegation led by the White House Chief of Staff, John Kelly, who went in a small procession to the cemetery located about an hour's drive from Paris.
The absence of Trump has earned him severe criticism from many American and European officials, old and current, on social networks.
David Frum, speechwriter for President George W. Bush, said in a series of tweets, his astonishment: "It's amazing that a president travels to France for this important anniversary – and then stays in his room. Hotel to watch television than to personally pay tribute to the Americans who gave their lives in France for the victory won 100 years ago tomorrow. "
We still do not know how time has prevented the president's plans.
A helicopter ride aboard the Marine One was perhaps too risky. The weather did not deter French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel from driving Saturday to a city in northern France where the Allies and Germany signed the Armistice ending the war, said the BBC. Macron and Merkel unveiled a commemorative plaque at the event.
Nicholas Soames, a member of the British Parliament, grandson of Winston Churchill, reacted to Trump's absence during the ceremony at the cemetery by calling the American president "pathetic".
The soldiers "died facing the enemy and this pathetic insufficient [Trump] could not even defy time to pay homage to The Fallen ", Soames wrote on Twitter.
Kelly Magsamen, a former senior Pentagon official, borrowed one of Trump's ridiculous phrasing. saying that he was displaying "really low energy" by "not bothering" to go in the rain.
"In one way or another, everyone could do it today," she said. tweeted.
Former Macron campaign advisor, Francois Heisbourg, also hit Trump, posting a photo of a pedaling cyclist in a wet street corner in Paris.
"Nothing that a cyclist can handle, let alone a presidential [helicopter]," he wrote.
Ben Rhodes, an assistant national security adviser to the Obama administration, recalled his experience in planning President Barack Obama's travels for eight years.
"There is always a rain option," he wrote. "Always."
Rhodes went on with a scathing catch: "Trump will use the US Army for a pre-election political cascade but will sit in his hotel instead of honoring those who fought and died for America."
He spoke of Trump's deployment of more than 5,000 troops on the southern border of the United States in response to a caravan of migrants hundreds of kilometers away in Mexico.
Trump is still planning to attend an Armistice Day event with other world leaders at the Arc de Triomphe on Sunday and to speak at the American Suresnes Cemetery on Monday.
At the Aisne-Marne cemetery, Kelly and General Joseph Dunford, president of the Marine Corps, laid a wreath in honor of the deceased.
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