TRUMP SPARKS CONTROVERSY, BLAMES FRANCE UNREST ON ISLAM AND MIGRATION
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Agency Report
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday blamed France’s ongoing student protests on mass migration and Islam, using the unrest to reinforce his right-wing political narrative ahead of next month’s US midterm elections.
“What’s happening in France is nothing less than out of control mass migration,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“This isn’t about schools, this is about Islam wanting to take over a once great Country!”
French students have blocked the entrances of hundreds of high schools across the country since late September, demanding improved conditions. The demonstrations have occasionally resulted in clashes with security forces.
About 250,000 people took to the streets across France on Tuesday as protests continued.
Trump did not provide evidence to support his claims. In France, no connection has so far been established between the student protests and religious or identity-based demands.
However, prominent figures within Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement have seized on the protests to highlight their concerns about immigration ahead of the US midterm elections.
Trump allies and right-wing commentators repeatedly shared footage of the unrest in the days before his statement.
“The riots in France are a clear warning to the rest of the West,” Trump ally Glenn Beck wrote on X on Monday, claiming that the events were part of an international socialist effort to “dismantle the West.”
Right-wing commentator Dave Rubin also posted footage from a French train station, warning his followers that the situation “will come to America if the Democrats take power again.”
Trump, 80, has intensified his rhetoric on issues including migration and transgender rights as Republicans face a difficult midterm election battle, with the Iran war and rising cost of living potentially threatening their control of Congress.
Europe has remained a frequent target of Trump’s criticism since his first term in office. His second administration has increasingly warned about what it describes as the decline of Western culture in Europe.
The US national security strategy released in December said Europe was facing “civilizational erasure” and, in unusually strong language towards US allies, said Washington would support resistance to current political trends.
US Vice President JD Vance has also been a vocal critic of Europe over immigration and cultural issues.
Trump’s close relationship with outgoing French President Emmanuel Macron has also failed to prevent him from criticising France, one of Washington’s key European allies.
France responded to Trump’s comments by comparing his reaction with that of Iran, which had earlier summoned the French ambassador over what it described as Paris’ “violent response” to the school protests.
“You’ll get the Iranians’ version, perhaps the version from some Israelis, perhaps the version from some Americans,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday.
Barrot said French diplomatic missions were working to present France’s position internationally “so that we have our own narratives to disseminate, rather than being subjected to those of others.”
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