Macron says foreign politicians used French unrest for campaigning

Emmanuel Macron has accused unnamed foreign leaders of using riots in French cities to serve their electoral campaigns, while saying there was no visible foreign interference in the events themselves. Speaking in Doha, he said false claims about France being overwhelmed by migrants and Islamists had been amplified by foreign leaders and were influenced by AI-generated videos.

The riots followed weeks of student protests over high-school conditions and broke out alongside cost-of-living demonstrations, with violence reported in Paris, Lyon, Marseille and Nice. Nearly 150 people have been jailed and more than 800 brought before the courts; Macron blamed much of the unrest on far-left groups, while Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump separately linked the disorder to immigration and Islamism. EU regulators are also examining possible online disinformation campaigns around the riots.