Rioting in France gives Trump a new talking point as he tries to stave off GOP midterm losses

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As Kansans were waiting for President Donald Trump to arrive at his rally in Wichita this week, they were treated to a new addition to the pre-show program: footage of this weekend’s violent protests in France, most of it clipped from Fox News, aired on large screens.

That the unrest was unfolding 4,700 miles away from the Heartland Credit Union Arena seemed immaterial to the point Trump and his team were trying to make. This could happen here, Trump would later warn his crowd, if Democrats win in November’s midterms.

“When you see burning steeples and raging fires in France, just remember that is what the radical ‘Dumocrats’ want to do to America,” he said Monday.

France, he claimed, was being “conquered, looted and burned to the ground by migrants, jihadists and communists who hate Christianity” and “the Western civilization itself.”

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It’s a theme the president has already said he’ll return to Tuesday night in North Carolina. With a narrowing window for harsh political winds to shift, Trump and Republicans have seized on the violence as they make their final arguments to American voters. To some of Trump’s advisers, the unrest has looked a little like an “October surprise” that some believe could help improve what had been dire prospects for victory in just two weeks.

The torched cars, graffiti and looted shops are all a cautionary tale, they have warned, and the inevitable result of liberal policies — particularly on immigration — that they have been warning against for years.

There is little evidence the violence in France over the weekend was carried out by illegal immigrants, or immigrants of any kind. The demonstrations began as a student movement demanding better funding and improvements at schools. Labor unions and other groups joined to protest high living costs and record fuel prices.

What led to the scenes of violence is a matter of dispute among France’s political leaders, and has led to a round of finger-pointing.

Trump, along with right-wing leaders in France, used the scenes to accuse French President Emmanuel Macron and other European centrists of failing to get a handle on uncontrolled migration from the Middle East and Africa.

“Our country is caught in a vice…between violence and powerlessness,” Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader, said, suggesting only her firm hand could restore order amid Macron’s “chaos.”

Le Pen, who is standing in the presidential election for the far-right National Rally party, has sought to inject the issue of migration into the debate, blaming the violence on delinquents from France’s banlieues , poor urban areas where much of the country’s migrant population lives.

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Trump stopped short Tuesday of saying whether he would endorse Le Pen in next year’s election, where she is a front-runner. But he nonetheless appeared to be echoing her arguments, and insisted Macron had ignored his advice to crack down on migration.

“Some people think it’s a little controversial. I don’t care,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Tuesday. “It’s an immigration problem. We have people that poured into France, and they were also unchecked, unvetted, like with (President Joe) Biden when he was doing. We don’t do that.”

Earlier in the day, he specifically invoked “what is taking place in France” in pledging that the spending in outside money he oversees will top $400 million by Election Day.

It may be too early to tell whether Trump’s decision to seize on the images from France will have a determinative effect among American midterm voters. Most say their primary concerns are the high cost of living, and Trump’s immigration agenda has become unpopular, with majorities of Americans saying in polls his administration has gone too far in deporting undocumented immigrants from the United States.

Trump, however, has chafed at recommendations from political advisers that he not mention immigration as much as he stumps for Republican candidates. As he shines a spotlight on the situation in Europe, he has once again made a hardline approach to immigration a centerpiece of his pitch.

“If you want to see what is at stake in this election,” Trump said ominously in Kansas on Monday, “just look at what’s happening in France.”

Other Republicans have followed suit. Vice President JD Vance wrote on X that immigration was to blame for the violence.

“Western liberals imported the third world into France and other countries in the name of diversity and compassion,” he wrote in a post that featured video of the fire that destroyed the historic town hall in Limoges, the town in central France famous for its porcelain. “They ignored fundamental questions of assimilation and compatibility.”

Trump referred approvingly to Vance’s post in the Oval Office on Tuesday, and insisted that concerns about education or costs were not driving the scenes of unrest.

“It’s not about education. It’s about immigration,” he said. “It’s about illegal people coming in who basically hate France. They hate the people. They hate everything.”

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本周，堪萨斯州民众在等待唐纳德·特朗普总统抵达威奇托参加集会时，在预热节目中看到了一个新内容：本周末法国发生的暴力抗议活动的画面，其中大部分剪辑自福克斯新闻，在大屏幕上播放。

骚乱发生在距离哈特兰信用社体育馆4700英里之外的地方，但这似乎与特朗普及其团队想要表达的观点无关。特朗普后来警告他的支持者，如果民主党在11月的中期选举中获胜，这种情况也可能发生在我们这里。

“当你们看到法国燃烧的尖顶和熊熊大火时，请记住，这就是激进的‘民主党人’想要在美国做的事情，”他周一说道。

他声称，法国正被“仇恨基督教和“西方文明本身”的移民、圣战分子和共产主义者征服、掠夺和烧毁”。

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总统已经表示，他将在周二晚北卡罗来纳州的演讲中再次提及这一主题。随着政治风向转变的窗口期越来越短，特朗普和共和党人利用暴力事件向美国选民做最后的拉票。在特朗普的一些顾问看来，这场骚乱有点像“十月惊奇”，一些人认为这或许能帮助扭转原本在短短两周内岌岌可危的胜选前景。

他们警告说，被烧毁的汽车、涂鸦和被洗劫的商店都是一个警示故事，也是自由主义政策（尤其是移民政策）的必然结果，而他们多年来一直警告这些政策的弊端。

几乎没有证据表明周末在法国发生的暴力事件是由非法移民或任何类型的移民所为。示威活动最初是学生运动，要求增加学校经费并改善教学条件。随后，工会和其他团体加入进来，抗议高昂的生活成本和创纪录的燃油价格。

导致暴力事件发生的原因在法国政治领导人之间存在争议，并引发了一轮互相指责。

特朗普和法国右翼领导人利用这些场景指责法国总统埃马纽埃尔·马克龙和其他欧洲中间派未能控制来自中东和非洲的不受控制的移民。

“我们的国家陷入了暴力和无力之间的困境，”极右翼领导人玛丽娜·勒庞说道，暗示只有她强有力的手段才能在马克龙造成的“混乱”中恢复秩序。

代表极右翼政党国民联盟参加总统选举的勒庞试图将移民问题引入辩论，将暴力事件归咎于法国郊区（banlieues）的犯罪分子，这些贫困的城市地区居住着该国大部分移民人口。

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周二，特朗普并未明确表态是否会在明年的总统大选中支持勒庞，尽管勒庞目前是领跑者。但他似乎在呼应勒庞的观点，并坚称马克龙无视了他关于严厉打击移民的建议。

“有些人觉得这有点争议。我不在乎，”特朗普周二在椭圆形办公室说。“这是个移民问题。以前也有很多人涌入法国，而且他们也没有经过任何检查和审查，就像（乔·）拜登总统以前做的那样。我们不会那样做。”

当天早些时候，他特别提到了“法国正在发生的事情”，并承诺在他监管下，到选举日，外部资金的支出将超过 4 亿美元。

现在断言特朗普利用法国照片博取眼球的决定是否会对美国中期选举选民产生决定性影响还为时尚早。大多数选民表示，他们最关心的是高昂的生活成本，而特朗普的移民政策也已不得人心，民调显示，大多数美国人认为他的政府在遣返非法移民方面做得太过火了。

然而，特朗普对政治顾问提出的建议——即在为共和党候选人助选时不要过多提及移民问题——感到不满。在他聚焦欧洲局势的同时，他再次将强硬的移民政策作为其竞选纲领的核心。

“如果你想了解这次选举的利害关系，”特朗普周一在堪萨斯州语气阴沉地说，“那就看看法国正在发生的事情吧。”

其他共和党人也纷纷效仿。副总统JD·万斯在X网站上撰文称，移民是造成暴力事件的罪魁祸首。

他在一篇帖子中写道：“西方自由主义者以多元化和同情心的名义，将第三世界引入法国和其他国家。”帖子中还附有一段视频，视频显示法国中部以瓷器闻名的利摩日镇历史悠久的市政厅被大火烧毁。“他们忽视了同化和兼容性等根本问题。”

周二，特朗普对万斯在椭圆形办公室的职位表示赞许，并坚称对教育或成本的担忧并非引发骚乱的原因。

“这不是教育问题，而是移民问题，”他说。“是那些非法入境的人，他们基本上憎恨法国。他们憎恨法国人民，憎恨一切。”