PARIS ― French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday criticized foreign leaders he said were using France’s unrest for their own political purposes, making “unacceptable and even stupid comments.”
In a swipe at President Donald Trump and others, Macron rebuked politicians he said were promoting the misinformation that French protests, some of which spiraled into riots over the weekend, represent an immigrant takeover of the country.
The French president, responding to questions from reporters, said foreign interference did not appear to have triggered mass protests over rising cost of living or the riots that ensued. Instead, Macron said, “there was foreign manipulation of information afterward, which led to unacceptable and even stupid comments by many, including foreign leaders.”
Speaking in Doha, Qatar, during a diplomatic visit to the Persian Gulf, in part to secure fuel supplies, Macron did not identify the leaders in questions by name, but referred to those “who are in campaign mode, here in the region or on the other side of the Atlantic.”
Asked whether he was referring to Trump, he replied: “among others.”
“We saw AI images showing scenes that never happened in France. We have people claiming that we had been invaded by hordes of migrants and Islamists, which is completely false,” he said. “There are people campaigning off our backs.”
Ahead of the U.S. midterm elections next month, Trump made unsubstantiated declarations at a rally on Monday, saying that France was being “conquered, looted and burned to the ground by migrants, jihadists and communists.”
Trump and his supporters have posted social media musings on the upheaval in France since protests began weeks ago over an array of economic and other grievances. Migrants “have taken over France,” Trump said in a Truth Social post Monday. “They must CLOSE THE BORDERS, FAST!”
Vice President JD Vance sought to rally voters with comments on the riots in France, saying that a similar fate awaits the United States if Democrats win.
“In times like these, we can see who loves France and who doesn’t,” Macron told reporters Monday.
“We don’t need that. We already have difficulties,” he said of the characterization abroad. “We are managing them carefully, with respect, but also with determination and firmness and we’ll see it through to the end, … but one shouldn’t go around saying nonsense.”
Protests have swept France in recent weeks, drawing a broad range of people to the streets, including students, labor unions, farmers and transportation workers expressing grievances over rising prices, budget cuts and pressure on public services. More than half a million people marched in Paris and cities across France on Saturday before violence broke out that stunned the country, with masked rioters torching cars and ransacking stores.
Neither the protest demands nor the government response have centered around migration or religion.
Well before the weekend’s dramatic scenes, far-right or anti-immigrant influencers, including conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, spread a narrative that the French protests were a manifestation of an immigrant invasion or racial and religious strife, with slogans such as “France has fallen.” Some promoted false claims online of dead bodies in the streets or posted unrelated images of disorder that were then widely shared.
This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also campaigning for reelection, claimed France was overrun by an “invasion of extremist Islam.”
Kremlin special envoy Kirill Dmitriev has shared posts on X depicting the French protests as the “collapse” of Europe at the hands of migration and efforts to reduce dependence on Russian energy.
In France, the domestic debate has instead focused on a widespread sense of economic discontent.
The far-right National Rally has accused the far left of stoking violence and promoted its anti-immigrant platform for next year’s presidential election. Still, even the party’s leader, Marine Le Pen, has largely focused on blaming her political rivals and promoting herself as the law-and-order candidate.
Trump administration officials have regularly promoted depictions of migration as Europe’s main threat, irking some European leaders even as the continent adopts restrictive controls.
Some politicians in other European counties have in recent days seized on the moment to call for a crackdown on migration, a key election issue and rallying point for the right across the continent.
Some online commentators have pointed to images of protesters carrying Palestinian flags, a cause championed by left-leaning movements in France and globally. Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, a critic of Trump and Netanyahu, joined some French students protesting underfunded schools earlier this month.
French government officials have blamed the weekend’s rioting and looting on “ultraleft” groups, pointing to security lapses that left police unable contain the mayhem. Authorities have imposed curfews to restore calm.
As Trump wades into the discourse on France, one factor mobilizing many protesters is a rise in prices, including energy prices driven by Trump and Netanyahu’s war against Iran. Macron on Wednesday said, repeating a point he has made in recent days, he went to the Gulf at a time of unrest at home partly to help bring down prices fueled by a war France did not seek out but that was weighing on its citizens.
The post Some foreign leaders blame migration for France’s riots. Macron says that’s ‘stupid.’ appeared first on Washington Post.
