France is sending a 'little sister' replica of the Statue of Liberty to the United States

• France is sending the United States a nearly 10-foot tall replica of the Statue of Liberty.
• The statue will be on display in New York in July before being taken to Washington, DC.
• It was previously on display at a museum in Paris.

France is sending the United States a new, smaller scale, Statue of Liberty this summer.

The nearly 10-foot-tall bronze statue, nicknamed the "little sister," has been on display at the National Museum of Arts and Crafts (CNAM) in Paris, and will be installed on New York's Ellis Island from July 1 to July 5, CNN reported.

"We want to send a very simple message: Our friendship with the United States is very important, particularly at this moment," Olivier Faron, general administrator of the CNAM, told CNN. "We have to conserve and defend our friendship."

The replica statue is 1/16 the size of the original Statue of Liberty, which represents the Roman goddess Libertas and was brought to New York in 1886 to strengthen ties between France and the United States.

After the smaller statue's stay on Ellis Island, it will be placed in a garden at the French ambassador's Washington, D.C. residence, where it will stay for 10 years, Le Journal du Dimanche previously reported.