The indictment of former U.S. President Donald by a Manhattan grand jury has sent a wave of joy among European commentators and media outlets.
Dropping the pretence of being a news outlet, Germany’s influential political magazine, Der Spiegel, declared President Trump’s indictment a ‘miracle.’
“Miracles still do happen. Donald Trump has actually been indicted,” the magazine proclaimed.
The German weekly optimistically wrote a political obituary of the former U.S. president. The American voters “aren’t interested in sending him back to the White House – a fact that was made clear through his loss in the 2020 elections and the poor showing by the Republicans in the midterms last fall. America wants to leave this man behind,” Der Spiegel concluded.
The German newspaper Die Süddeutsche Zeitung claimed that the indictment will weaken President Trump’s 2024 re-election bid, but admitted that it will not end the populist movement started by him. “In New York, Donald Trump must stand before the court. This will weaken him. But the trial will not rid the U.S. of Trumpism,” the newspaper wrote.
Germany’s state media was dismayed that despite years of relentless slanderous media coverage, President Trump was still a political force to reckon with in the next U.S. election.
“This is not Trump’s first encounter with the judiciary. Former-US President’s list of scandals is long — but attempts to oust him have failed. Many in the U.S. continue to consider him eligible,” German state broadcaster Tagesschau lamented.
Taking a decidedly anti-American tone, the state-run outlet complained that: “All of this would be enough elsewhere in the world to force a politician to resign or be ousted. Not in the U.S., not in the case of Trump.”
The left-wing British newspaper The Guardian was delighted at the indictment, and wanted more legal action against the farmer U.S. president. “To shy away from bringing charges because they will increase divisions and might unleash violence would be wrong. As both businessman and politician, Mr Trump has spent a lifetime seeking to avoid legal consequences for his conduct,” the daily commented.
“To allow him to sidestep them for fear of his reaction and that of his supporters would be to bolster his message that truth and the law are for little people, and that lies and might will triumph. That would surely be a far greater blow to American democracy,” The Guardian concluded.
The French newspaper Le Monde saw the legal warfare waged against Trump as a crusade to save democracy in the United States. Former president’s indictment is a “test for an American democracy under strain,” the French newspaper wrote.
“Trump has only himself to blame,” the French daily declared. “As the first president to be impeached twice by the House of Representatives and the first ex-president to be prosecuted in the history of the country, he brings in his wake an accumulation of cases that show, at the very least, a behavioral problem.” the newspaper concluded.
[Excepts from German news reports translated by the author]
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