France has had its worst unrest in years: more than 500,000 people in the streets, more than 2,500 arrests and a 19th-century town hall in Limoges burned to the ground. President Trump says it’s a preview of America if Democrats win the midterms. “If you want to see what is at stake in this election, just look at what’s happening in France,” he told a rally near Wichita, Kansas, on Monday. “When you see burning steeples and raging fires in France, just remember, that is what the radical Democrats want to do to America,” Newsweek reported.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said the same thing a day earlier: “France is descending into chaos because they wanted OPEN BORDERS, just like the socialist Democrats in America,” Fox News reported. The French government tells a different story about what started it.
Why are people rioting in France?
It started with schools. About a month ago, high school students began protesting crumbling buildings, packed classrooms and teacher shortages. That grew into a national protest over the cost of living, with wages falling behind prices and public services getting worse, CBS News reported. The Yellow Vests movement organized the weekend rallies that turned violent.
Paris got the worst of it. In Limoges, masked rioters burned the town hall, and its clock tower, which had stood for nearly 150 years, collapsed. In Lyon, the tourist office was set on fire, and in Marseille, the 1600s-era city hall was stormed. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu blamed “an ultra-left movement intent on orchestrating profound disorder” before France’s April presidential election, and said police “had lost control.” Curfews in Paris, Nice and Lyon seem to have helped: protests cooled overnight Monday, ABC News reported.
Did immigration cause the France riots?
French officials haven’t said so. CBS News reported that officials “have not suggested any link between the unrest and immigration.” The government blames far-left agitators for the violence, and the original protests were about schools and prices. Trump has called it a migrant takeover, posting that “The migrants have taken over France,” and claimed he once told President Emmanuel Macron to “close your border or you will lose France.” That conversation hasn’t been confirmed. Neither Trump nor Johnson offered evidence that U.S. Democrats want riots.
What’s the midterm argument here?
Fear of disorder is an old and effective campaign message, and Trump is using it in places where Republicans are nervous. He was in Kansas to help Sen. Roger Marshall, whose race against Democrat Adam Hamilton the Cook Political Report now calls a toss-up. The election is Nov. 3.
The BeezLoop Take
Trump is pointing at France and seeing immigrants. The French government is pointing at the same fires and seeing anger over prices, schools and wages, plus far-left groups exploiting it. Those are very different diagnoses, and only one of them comes from the people actually running France.
There’s an irony Trump skips. The French are in the streets over the cost of living, the same thing 44% of Americans say has made them worse off this year, according to the latest NBC poll. If there’s a lesson for the U.S. in France, it’s about what happens when people feel squeezed and ignored, not about who wins Kansas.
The open question: does the France warning move voters who are mostly worried about prices, or does it play only to people who already agree?
Also on BeezLoop: Trump’s approval hit a second-term low in the latest NBC poll, and Trump told a Kentucky rally the Pentagon will fund a plant if Republicans win.
Sources: Newsweek, via Yahoo News · CBS News · Fox News · ABC News · USA TODAY (video)
