French President Emmanuel Macron has criticised comments by a number of foreign leaders about the unrest that has shaken several French cities.
During a visit to Qatar, Macron told journalists that some senior figures claim the country has been taken over by migrants and Islamists, but that this is simply not true, Politico reports.
Macron’s remarks were effectively a response to US President Donald Trump, who this week claimed that migrants, jihadists and communists are setting fire to, looting and destroying France.
Macron noted that Trump had joined those political leaders who build their election campaigns at France’s expense. He added that it is precisely at moments like these that it becomes clear who truly loves France and who does not.
Right-wing leaders in other European countries, including Hungary and Poland, also tried to blame the unrest on migration in order to justify their own hardline policies on the issue. Hungary’s Prime Minister Péter Magyar wrote on social media platform X that the chaos in French cities shows everyone that Hungary’s strict approach to migration is the right one.
In response, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot offered to help the relevant countries understand the situation so that they do not spread false information. He stressed that foreign leaders who comment on or use events in France for their own electoral purposes, without understanding what is happening, should show at least a basic degree of restraint.
- In recent days, Trump urged France to close its borders to migrants, claiming they are supposedly behind the riots in the country.
- The protests erupted amid anger over the rising cost of living and the housing crisis, spreading across a number of European countries and in some places escalating into riots and clashes with law enforcement.
- A partial curfew was introduced in Paris and other French cities.
- A fire broke out in Limoges, causing the city hall building, built in 1883 and modelled on Paris City Hall, to collapse almost completely.
- Meanwhile, the leader of the far-right "National Rally" party, Marine Le Pen, became the only candidate in France’s upcoming presidential election to have increased her rating amid the unrest in cities linked to protests against the high cost of living.