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Rob Lowe, Of ‘The Grinder,’ Mocks France Following Paris Attacks: ‘NOW France Closes Its Borders’

By Zachary Volkert
Published on: 13:32 PST, Nov 13, 2015

Rob Lowe has been working hard to promote his upcoming show The Grinder, but a few tweets following the Paris shooting attacks are giving him another kind of press: outrage.

While police in the city of Paris were still ongoing with their efforts to free hostages from Paris’ historic Bataclan theater, Rob took to Twitter to provide some commentary on the ongoing events apart from his usual promotion for The Grinder. Lowe’s first tweet out to the public started out innocently, giving his support to French citizens affected by the violent event.

After that expression of support, Rob then turned his message political. In reference to France’s decision to accept refugees in the ongoing crisis, Lowe mocked the decision that French president Francois Hollande had made to declare a state of emergency and close its borders.

Rob didn’t stop there. While Hollande gave a speech encouraging Parisians to stay strong even amidst the attack, Lowe offered his expertise on giving an internationally scrutinized speech in the face of a bloody national tragedy. Though Rob did concede that perhaps it was the translation that was bad, and not the original words that Francois had wanted to get across.

The Grinder Rob Lowe Paris attacks
Rob Lowe has made headlines leading up to his premiere of ‘The Grinder’ with discussions of his increasingly conservative political leanings. (Photo by Rob Kim/Getty Images)

Lowe’s Twitter followers were split on the comments. The statement Rob made questioning the closing of France’s borders was favorite more than 2,000 times and received nearly 1,500 retweets only a few hours later. Others were outraged that Lowe would choose such a sensitive moment for barbed political humor.

The Grinder might not be in too much trouble though. Other fans of Rob, however, were right in line with his tweets about the Paris attack. Many called the shootings an act of Islamic extremism and rallied behind Lowe for describing the event the way they were also viewing it.

In an industry notorious for being largely liberal, Rob has stood out for years as a lone conservative voice. In an interview with the New York Times, Lowe said that he had slowly become more conservative over the years due to things like states legalizing marijuana and what he views as too much government intervention.

“My thing is personal freedoms, freedoms for the individual to love whom they want, do with what they want. In fact, I want the government out of almost everything.”

The Grinder Rob Lowe Paris shootings
With new show ‘The Grinder,’ Rob Lowe picked either a terrible for a very opportune moment to criticize French foreign policy following the Paris shootings. (Photo by Thierry Chesnot/Getty Images)

With his new show The Grinder on the way, Rob Lowe has picked an odd moment to get on a controversial side of a tragic political event. Although the total numbers are still being calculated, more than 100 people died in the coordinated Paris attacks at six separate locations in the city of Paris. Pending investigations have yet to reveal who is responsible.

[Image via Pool and Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images]

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