France’s self-professed last sculpture foundry has weighed into a row over whether the US should return the Statue of Liberty to its country of origin by proposing to build a new one out of titanium.

The proposal by Nice-based Atelier Missor, which specialises in sculpting famed French figures such as Napoleon and Joan of Arc, received approval from Elon Musk, who called the idea “cool” on X.

The foundry’s plan to build a new Statue of Liberty “to withstand millions of years” followed a call by French centre-Left MEP Raphael Glucksmann for America to return the original.

During a political rally of his Place Publique movement, Mr Glucksmann launched a blistering attack on the Trump administration in which he said: “We’re going to say to the Americans who have chosen to side with the tyrants, to the Americans who fired researchers for demanding scientific freedom: ‘Give us back the Statue of Liberty.’”

Mr Glucksmann is a member of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats and a staunch supporter of Ukraine.

France gave the statue, which stands 305 feet tall and weighs 450,000lbs, to the US as a gift on July 4, 1884, to commemorate the 108th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

The iconic copper-clad sculpture was created by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and sits on Liberty Island in New York Harbour.

“We gave it to you as a gift,” Mr Glucksmann went on, citing the United States’ founding values of freedom and liberty. “But apparently you despise it. So it will be just fine here at home.”

He concluded his remarks by stating France would welcome top researchers who were fired in the cuts to the US National Institutes of Health and similar organisations.