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French President Emmanuel Macron says “illegitimate” protests are off the table for the next several days following last weekend’s riots, pinning the chaos on “seditious” far-left groups and blasting foreign leaders, including Trump, for tying the unrest to immigration.
Getting into it: After a Thursday meeting with his top security officials and ministers, Macron said unions and other recognized organizers can still hold marches, but police may change their routes to keep crowds away from stores, while those called by “individuals or groups with no legitimate authority” will be shut down. He blamed the most serious violence on “political and seditious acts by ultra-left groups whose aim is to bring down the Republic,” adding that “the general recommendation is that there should be no demonstrations in the coming days.”
Lyon, Marseille, Nice and Toulon have all barred Saturday protests, with Lyon’s ban covering its entire city center. In Paris, officials blocked a planned Yellow Vest and student march through the heart of the city, while allowing a separate march from Place de la Bastille as long as it stays out of the city center.
Shop owners across Paris are putting up plywood, and Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu promised a “massive” police presence with military support. More than 900 people now face prosecution out of the 2,500 arrests made since the weekend.
“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,” Macron said Wednesday in Qatar, calling it “unacceptable and even stupid comments by many, including foreign leaders.” Asked if he meant Trump, he said, “among others.”
This all comes after Trump claimed at a rally Monday that France was being “conquered, looted and burned to the ground by migrants, jihadists and communists,” Vice President JD Vance warned the same could happen in the US if Democrats win, and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said France faced an “invasion of extremist Islam,” though French officials say the protests have centered on living costs and schools, not immigration.
Macron said there was no sign of foreign interference in the riots themselves, but “foreign manipulation of information afterward.”
