Macron warns of foreign influence and criticizes Trump for "stupid" statements

In France, the authorities are trying to regain control after last weekend's violent riots and looting.

Night curfews have been in effect in parts of Paris and several other cities since Monday, and police are mobilizing in full ahead of the new demonstrations called for by the Yellow Vests protest movement and parts of the student movement on Saturday.

The country's heavily criticized interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, is now promising a "comprehensive security operation", where the army will also be deployed to guard important buildings.

At the same time, President Emmanuel Macron is harshly criticizing the image spread on social media and by world leaders of what happened last weekend.

- I have not seen evidence of clear influence from a foreign power during the events themselves. However, there has since been a foreign manipulation of the information. We've seen AI-generated footage showing scenes that never happened in France. We have heard people claim that we are being invaded by hordes of immigrants and Islamists, which is completely false, Emmanuel Macron said at a press conference on Wednesday.

When asked if he was referring to US President Donald Trump, he answered in the affirmative:

- He and others. In moments like these, you see who loves France, and who doesn't. I love my country and we must right what went wrong. But when I see people who only accept AI images they see on social media and spread what some groups want you to believe is happening in France, then they are campaigning behind our backs. We don't need that, we have it hard enough as it is, Macron said.

Donald Trump is currently in the middle of an election campaign ahead of the mid-term elections for the US Congress, where he is using France as a deterrent example.

"This is not about schools, it's about Islam wanting to take over another big country," he wrote on his network Truth Social as early as October 6, when the student movement in France began to grow.

Trump has spoken favorably of right-wing nationalist Marine Le Pen, and on Friday, October 16, he sarcastically suggested that he and wife Melania might support the rebellion against Macron:

- It's incredible, France seems so damn good at revolutions. Let's go to France and join the revolution…

But on Monday, after the riots, the tone was darker again when Trump held a campaign rally in Kansas:

- If you want to know what is at stake in this election, look at what is happening in France. A once great nation now being invaded, looted and burned by migrants, jihadists and communists who hate Christianity, Trump said.

At the same time, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - also in the middle of an election campaign - claimed that France was exposed to "an invasion of extremist Islam". Among other things with reference to the fact that some of the activists carried Palestinian flags.

However, there is no confirmed information that Islamists would have been driving the riots in France. According to the police, the people arrested are primarily people with connections to violent groups in the extreme left (among others the main suspect behind the fire in the city hall in Limoges), previously convicted criminals and a fairly large proportion of previously unpunished individuals, many from poor areas, who for various reasons have chosen to confront the police and participate in looting of shops.