The wave of French violence fuels the migration battle in the EU

The images of the devastation in France have shocked the world. Many are asking why what started as student protests has degenerated into violent riots and widespread vandalism.

But several EU leaders have already pointed out a liberal migration policy as a scapegoat.

Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar has taken the opportunity to argue for a very restrictive asylum policy.

"In the face of this senseless destruction and this unjustified violence, it is perhaps now clear to everyone why Hungary advocates the strictest possible stance on migration," he writes on X.

Similar tones are heard from Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

"Poland will not repeat the mistakes of other European countries, and we will not pay for them either. We defend the border fiercely against illegal migration, we have our own asylum policy (we do not accept applications)," he writes on X.

The moves come just days after EU leaders clashed at the Brussels summit, which ended on Friday.

It was anything but a good atmosphere in the negotiation room when migration came up.

Diplomats have described the talks as "terrible", "ugly" and "unworthy of the European Council".

Simplified, the conflict can be described as a battle between two opposite poles. In one corner of the ring are leaders such as Denmark's Social Democratic Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Italy's right-wing leader Giorgia Meloni, who see migrants as a threat to Europe's security and culture.

In the other ring corner stands, among others, the Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, whose socialist government is the most liberal in Europe in terms of its views on migration. Last year, the Spanish government decided that hundreds of thousands of undocumented people would be entitled to apply for a residence permit.

Sánchez's critics believe that it was a contributing factor to the migration crisis in the Spanish exclave of Ceuta this summer.

The battle at the summit revolved around a formulation of so-called pull factors. Frederiksen and Meloni wanted to include a letter criticizing Spain's amnesty in the agreement that the EU leaders negotiated during the summit.

But after French President Emmanuel Macron, among others, put a stop to it, no settlement was reached.

- It was a bad debate because it was highly politicized and has been a major source of division around the table, Macron said after the meeting.

He then traveled home to Paris to deal with another day of violent riots.