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Paris pushes back

Macron Rebukes Foreign Leaders Over Riots

Speaking in Doha, French President Emmanuel Macron said leaders in election campaigns were using France's riots for political gain, after Benjamin Netanyahu said France had surrendered to radical Islam and Donald Trump blamed immigration.

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French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday dismissed foreign leaders' comments on the riots in France as "stupid." His remarks came a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said France had surrendered to "the invasion of radical Islam" and US President Donald Trump blamed the unrest on mass immigration.

Speaking in Doha, Macron said leaders "in the middle of election campaigns, whether in the region or on the other side of the Atlantic" were turning France into material for their own campaigns. "They're using our country for their own political campaigns," he said. "And we don't need that."

Macron blamed fake AI-generated videos of the violence for shaping those leaders' views. "There has been foreign manipulation of information in the aftermath," he said, adding that it "has led to comments that are as unacceptable as they are stupid, from many people, including foreign leaders." When a reporter asked whether he was referring to Trump, Macron answered: "Among others."

"We've had people claiming that we were invaded by hordes of migrants and Islamists, which is completely false," Macron said. The Associated Press noted that he gave no details on which AI images he meant or how he had established that they were false.

"The fact is, all the people who are speaking ill of our country right now are people who don't love our country," Macron added. "So those people really bother me."

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said his office was ready to offer clarification to the countries concerned "to help them avoid spreading or amplifying false information and making baseless claims on social media."

The violence gripped Paris and several other cities, among them Lyon, Marseille and Nice.

Netanyahu, campaigning ahead of next week's Israeli election, discussed the riots on Tuesday in a studio interview with i24NEWS. He described the scenes as "heartbreaking." "They didn't prepare, and they simply gave up. They surrendered to the invasion of radical Islam," he said.

He recounted that Macron had phoned him on October 7, 2023, to say France was pursuing a diplomatic solution. "Emmanuel, that's not going to happen. What you have here is ISIS. Hamas is ISIS, and in some ways, even worse. And if we don't eliminate them here, you'll have them in Paris," Netanyahu said he told the French president. "And that's exactly what's happening."

Netanyahu told Channel 14's Sophia Tupolev a similar account in a separate interview, which JNS reported. Pressed on whether Macron had learned anything, he replied that the French people "see what's happening in the streets of France," which he said "could foster a change in the political makeup of France." He added that he "certainly" expects relations to improve if a right-wing government comes to power in Paris.

Trump also spoke about the riots on Tuesday and blamed mass immigration. "When I look at France, when you look at Italy, when you look at all the turmoil and the hatred, that's not about school," he said. "That's about people coming into the countries that hate the country." He then addressed Macron directly: "Close your borders and take control before it is too late!"

The Financial Times reported that EU regulators are looking into whether foreign online interference and disinformation campaigns were tied to the French unrest. Unnamed security officials told the paper that pro-Russian and far-right accounts had circulated violent videos, and that some of the messaging may also have come from Iran and Algeria.

As JFeed reported on Tuesday, a Jewish pharmacist stood in the ruins of the business she had built after it was destroyed in the riots. The losses included €13,000 worth of medication intended for a patient who was waiting to receive it.
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