France

Familiar images of teargas clouds drifting across Paris squares, police baton charges against masked protesters and terrified teenagers floored – and worse – by stun grenades have once again focused the world’s attention on France’s policing methods.

While most of its western European neighbours generally favour police tactics that prioritise crowd containment and de-escalation, France has long responded to social movements that take to the streets with, at times, shocking physical force.

But they do possess an elan others lack.

I guess the French police weren’t kidding they beating them asses tonight . https://t.co/yWH4b30wic

— 0HOUR1 (@ZEER0HOUR) October 20, 2026

Only at the Guardian

As France picks up the pieces after a weekend of riots, Emmanuel Macron will sit down to a lavish state dinner in Qatar, more than 3,000 miles away.

The French president, who was due to meet the emir of Qatar on Tuesday during a Gulf tour to secure fuel supplies, has rarely seemed so distant from the people on city streets strewn with smashed glass.

He leaves behind a power vacuum that Marine Le Pen is determined to fill after elections in April, which Mr Macron cannot fight after serving two terms.

They put a hijab on Joan of Arc. They climbed up Toulouse’s glorious monument to the teenage Catholic saint who vanquished the English and covered her sinful pageboy bob with a cloth shaped into a veil. They then stuck a Palestine flag under her arm, so that she looked less like the 15th-century peasant girl who turned the tide against English rule and more like one of those time-rich, turbo-smug keffiyeh chicks who occasionally forswears brunch to call Jews Nazis.

In France, Muslim immigrants threatened to rape a woman in front of her 3-month-old baby. A left-wing politician who claims to be a feminist told her it was just “collateral damage” of the revolution and that the riots must continue.

Modern feminists have completely lost the plot, siding with rapists. https://t.co/ZvGIR5bBwT

— Dr. Maalouf ‏ (@realMaalouf) October 20, 2026

We’re watching what’s happening in France, and we’re watching the liars of the corporate press assure us that the riots, looting, burning down of commercial establishments and town halls, and other detestable attacks on civilization are happening because “students” are upset over “school funding” and classroom ratios.

And few people are buying it.

Social justice journalist Lisa Durden MELTS DOWN on air after getting absolutely wrecked about the riots in France by conservative commentator Ben Ferguson.

Durden claimed the riots were just “student protests,” but Ferguson wasn’t about to let that slide, and he had the receipts to back it up.

Then he delivered a brutal reality check that sent Durden into a fit of RAGE.

FERGUSON: “You either have to be incredibly incompetent or totally blind to look at the images and think that this is students that are doing this.”

Durden immediately snapped.

DURDEN: “What you’re not going to do is call me a pathological liar!”

“I’m talking now! You’re not going to call me a pathological liar because you don’t know me, so stop that right now!”

“EXCUSE YOU!”

Katie Pavlich did her best to keep the show from going completely off the rails.

— Overton (@overton_news) October 20, 2026

“Revolution!” some shouted during France’s protests. Others demanded better classroom conditions. Many simply wanted their household budgets to stop shrinking as fuel and food prices spike.

Some, meanwhile, relished confrontation. Masked youths battled police and seized a lawless opportunity to loot city stores of expensive sneakers and TVs.

France’s unrest is exposing deep political and economic fault lines ahead of next year’s presidential election, analysts say, strengthening anti-establishment forces while leaving the cash-strapped government with little room to respond.

French man films someone chasing a rioter.

A young French woman quickly appears and tells him to stop filming while making silly faces. https://t.co/pRJGiC9taE

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) October 20, 2026

US President Donald Trump says he warned French President Emmanuel Macron years ago that allowing large numbers of immigrants into France was “a big mistake”.

Speaking at the White House, Trump claimed Paris would soon become “a Muslim city” and argued that France should have closed its borders, as the US had done.

He added that France’s borders remained a problem and also criticised the country’s energy situation. His remarks came days after violent protests and looting in several French cities over the cost of living and school conditions.

A far-left activist has been arrested over the burning down of a historic town hall in France during the country’s violent riots.

Anti-terror police have been called in to investigate the arson of the town hall in the central city of Limoges, a listed building dating back to 1883 whose roof and belfry collapsed when it was engulfed by fire on Saturday.

The destruction of the building came on a night of chaos in which thousands of masked looters ransacked shops and businesses across France, with police ordering new curfews for Tuesday night in a bid to take back control.

Le beffroi de la mairie de Limoges, en flammes, s’est effondré https://t.co/tu9UBPS7iI

— BFM (@BFMTV) October 17, 2026

I’m old enough to remember when we called it ‘conquest’ when a mob of masked men stormed a town hall or a parliament building to raise the flag of a foreign nation. I can recall a time when the violent invasion of a nation’s high seats of civic power by a faceless swarm draped in the standard of a distant land was considered an act of brazen, treasonous hostility. So why do so many insist on referring to the thuggish usurping of the streets of Paris and beyond by gangs flying the Palestine flag as a ‘protest’?

Faint hope remains …

🚨BREAKING: A young patriot has scaled the statue of Joan of Arc in Toulouse and removed Palestinian and Antifa flags

Not all heroes wear capes! 🇫🇷👏 https://t.co/XrJTBEr0qV

— Inevitable West (@Inevitablewest) October 17, 2026

U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance said that mass immigration is the reason for riots that have spread across France in recent days, saying that the country needs to take action soon.

Over the weekend, riots and looting spread across the country as France’s central government on Oct. 19 ordered some local authorities to impose curfews. The weekend of violence between protesters and police followed weeks of what some have described as student ​demonstrations, rocking France six months ahead of its next presidential election.

“She is a sister. Don’t loot here, let’s go there!”

Muslim rioters in France recognize the shop owner as a fellow Muslim just before nearly destroying her store by accident.

Not a single Muslim-owned business or mosque has been looted in the riots. https://t.co/bM6uhcCMY3

— Dr. Maalouf ‏ (@realMaalouf) October 19, 2026

@fancypants_s

— Patti Jo (@TheSupeHero) October 19, 2026

H/T Patti Jo

As France’s fiery student protests merged with a nationwide revolt on Saturday, a communist leader and academic, Vijay Prashad, celebrated the unrest with a message linking protests across three continents.

“Paris-New Delhi-Buenos Aires,” Prashad posted on X, borrowing a line from the British punk band The Clash: “Let fury have the hour, anger can be power.”

Prashad was important not only for what he said, but for who he is: executive director of Tricontinental Ltd., a nonprofit funded by an American-born Marxist tech tycoon, Neville Roy Singham, who lives in Shanghai.

CHAOS INC. — Our @FoxNews Digital investigation is out: France’s riots this weekend are part of a wider international narrative of rebellion — a kind of "Chaos Inc." — amplified by a transnational network of communist and socialist organizations stretching from Europe to Asia, Australia, Africa and South America and North America.

On @foxandfriends in a few to discuss.

My Fox News Digital investigation has identified 54 organizations and movements in France’s October student protests and their wider network of supporters and international amplifiers, including communist parties, revolutionary socialist groups, labor unions, environmental activists, Muslim student advocates, Palestinian-solidarity organizations and international media outlets.

Of the 54 organizations identified in the October protest ecosystem, 16 — or only about one in three — are student or youth organizations, including communist youth groups and a Muslim student association.

The remaining 38 include adult-led communist groups, labor unions, political parties, revolutionary-left organizations, advocacy groups and international propaganda outlets.

Fox News Digital has learned an international coalition of 28 communist and socialist youth and organizations are galvanizing students and youth for a coordinated strike across 12 countries in Europe under the slogan "Fight for Our Future, Not Their Wars!" They are calling for walkouts, demonstrations, assemblies, blockades and occupations.

https://t.co/lfhLxUthRY

— Asra Nomani (@AsraNomani) October 19, 2026

H/T Patti Jo

Emmanuel Macron has said public gatherings will be banned to halt rioting if necessary, after French cities were burned and looted.

The French president announced civil liberties could be curtailed in an evening address from the Élysée Palace after government buildings were torched and shops ransacked in nationwide protests.

The central government’s prefects, responsible for upholding law across France, would work with local authorities to impose bans on “certain gatherings when necessary”, Mr Macron said.

Sounds pretty wishy washy.

@fancypants_s

— Patti Jo (@TheSupeHero) October 18, 2026

Macron Blames Trump!

During National Address to France President Macron Says He "Doesn’t Know What is Going On" but He’s Sure President Trump is to Blame

Remarkably, in the beginning of his remarks Macron says no one in the French government understands what is happening, but he is demanding an investigation.

A few paragraphs into the prepared transcript and Macron says high fuel prices driven by President Trump’s war against Iran, "a war we had nothing to do with," is certainly the cause of the protests that have mysteriously turned violent

https://t.co/RbiyTiQHGe

— TheLastRefuge (@TheLastRefuge2) October 18, 2026

h/t Hermes