Speaking at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference at National Harbor in Maryland on Friday, President Donald Trump told a story of a friend named "Jim" who was apparently too scared to return to Paris, despite his long tradition of visiting the French capital.
The comments appeared to be the latest broadside from the U.S. president toward European immigration policies. Last weekend, he had repeatedly referred to apparent problems in Sweden -- prompting a confused and at-times angry response from Swedes themselves, who said he was misrepresenting the issue.
Shortly after Trump made his comments about Paris at CPAC, Parisian Mayor Anne Hidalgo released a number of tweets that pushed back upon the depiction of the French capital. Addressing both Trump and Jim, she cited figures that showed that in the first period of 2017, U.S. tourist visits to Paris were up 30 percent over last year.