IQNA – As unrest and chaos unfold in France, the US president is exploiting these events to justify his own actions in the United States—actions aligned with his partisan agenda and Islamophobia.
Trump is presenting the unrest in France as evidence of Western decline caused by immigration and portrays Muslims as a cause of instability. But the protests began with demands from students, labor unions and citizens over schools, living costs, wages and public services.
Trump has sought to recast an economic and social crisis as a story about a threat to European identity. That narrative fits the Republican Party's election agenda in the United States and reinforces far-right discourse in Europe.
From crumbling schools to claims of a 'Muslim Paris'
Trump's remarks on the recent protests in France are a clear example of an attempt to change the subject of a social crisis. The roots of the crisis lie in economic pressure, declining purchasing power, dissatisfaction with public services and problems in France's education system. Trump, however, seeks to link it to immigration and the presence of Muslims in Europe.
French President Emmanuel Macron has said the roots of the crisis are the war against Iran, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and rising fuel prices in France and Europe. Yet Macron appears to have forgotten that he had told Trump in a message: "We can do great things about Iran."
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Monday, Trump criticized Macron's immigration policies and claimed that Paris would soon become a "Muslim city." He also said he had warned Macron that he was making a major mistake on immigration and had asked the French government to close the country's borders.
On his Truth Social platform, Trump claimed that migrants had taken over France and called for its borders to be closed quickly. At a campaign rally in Kansas, he described France as a country that migrants, extremists and communists had seized, plundered and set on fire.
These remarks are not simply criticism of the French government's performance or concern about street violence. By placing Muslims and migrants at the center of his narrative, Trump tries to create an image of a sweeping cultural and civilizational threat — one in which economic and social issues are pushed to the margins and religious and migrant identity becomes a ready explanation for social turmoil.
The Guardian reported on Monday that Trump, ahead of the US midterm elections, is trying to turn the unrest in France into a warning for American voters. He is presenting protests that began over school problems and rising living costs as a consequence of immigration and the weakening of Western civilization.
What are the French protests really about?
To understand the gap between the reality of the protests and Trump's narrative, one must return to where they began.
The wave of protests started at middle and high schools in Paris and its northern suburbs. Students there protested against teacher shortages, dilapidated classrooms, inadequate educational facilities and problems with the university admissions system.
As the protests spread, labor unions and social groups joined, raising demands including higher wages, better pensions, lower living costs and stronger public services.
On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in cities across France. The French Interior Ministry put the number of participants at about 550,000. The protests were peaceful in many places, but in some cities they led to clashes with police, arson and looting of stores.
The violence cannot be ignored. Public buildings and stores were damaged in a number of cities, and security forces clashed with protesters. However, the presence of violence in part of the protests does not mean that the demands of all protesters can be reduced to the actions of rioters. Nor can all these events be attributed, without credible evidence, to a single ethnic, religious or migrant group.
The General Confederation of Labour (CGT), one of France's largest unions, has supported the protest movement and called for lower prices, higher pensions and better wages. Alongside these demands, rising fuel prices and declining household purchasing power have helped widen discontent.
The result is a movement rooted in the tangible issues of daily life: families struggling with rising costs, students unhappy with their education, and workers seeking better pay and public services.
The main question is why Trump, instead of addressing these factors, prefers to talk about the "Islamization of Paris."
The answer lies in the political function of this narrative.
Why Trump needs the French crisis
Trump's remarks cannot be examined apart from the US domestic political situation. The congressional midterm elections are approaching in November 2026, and Republicans face competitive electoral pressure to hold their political position.
With the rise of progressive Muslim figures in the United States — such as Zohran Mamdani, who won the New York mayoral election, and Abdul El-Sayed, who is on the verge of winning a US Senate seat from Michigan — alarm bells are ringing for Trump and Republicans.
In such conditions, presenting the French crisis as the result of liberal governments' immigration policies allows Trump to justify his own policies at home. His message to voters is that what is happening in France could happen in the United States unless the country closes its borders and takes a tougher line on immigration.
At the Kansas rally, Trump presented the unrest in France as a warning to American voters. Before his speech, images from Fox News coverage of the French unrest were shown on large screens at the venue — images that, alongside Trump's remarks, reinforced a framework of crisis and threat.
Vice President JD Vance made a similar claim, arguing that Western liberal currents had created the conditions for crisis by bringing the Third World into France. House Speaker Mike Johnson also attributed the French unrest to open-border policies and compared it with Democratic policies in the United States.
These remarks show that the issue is not merely a personal reaction or a passing comment by Trump. The French unrest has become part of Republican political competition. In this narrative, a European country's crisis becomes evidence for the correctness of US domestic policy.
The choice of France among European countries facing similar protests is significant. Spain, Portugal and Italy have also seen discontent over housing costs, insufficient school investment and declining living standards. Protests in Albania have covered different issues, including corruption and public services.
If immigration were the main cause of the unrest, why have economic-pressure protests also spread across various European countries in the same period? The simultaneity of these protests does not by itself prove a single cause, but it shows that the cost-of-living and public-services crisis cannot be set aside with a simple identity-based explanation.
Muslims: a ready target for a political narrative
A key part of Trump's remarks is his choice of words, which presents immigration not as a policy issue but as a threat to the existence of a society. The phrase "Paris will soon be a Muslim city" rests on this logic: Muslims are portrayed not as citizens with rights, demands and differing views, but as a unified force taking over a city.
This kind of language draws no clear line between religious identity and political or violent behavior. As a result, the audience is steered away from asking who committed the looting or arson and what their motives were, and toward viewing the presence of Muslims or migrants as the main cause of instability.
Such an interpretation is incompatible with the complex reality of French society. Muslims in France are not a homogeneous group. They come from diverse social, ethnic and national backgrounds and hold different political and social views. The presence of Muslims in French society is not in itself evidence of a link to street violence.
This criticism does not deny problems related to social integration, immigration policy, public security or the responsibility of individuals who commit crimes. These issues can be subjects of public debate and policymaking. The problem begins when responsibility for individuals' behavior is generalized to a religious population and an economic crisis becomes a pretext for stigmatizing Muslims.
In this situation, Islamophobia is not limited to direct insults against Muslims. It is also reproduced within a political framework in which Islam is by default linked to insecurity, unrest and threats to national identity.
Linking the French unrest to Palestine
Another dimension appears in an Al Jazeera analysis of activity by Israeli and European far-right accounts on the X social media platform. According to the report, a network of accounts tried to link the French protests to Paris's recognition of Palestinian statehood.
Some accounts published images and videos that appeared to show the recent French protests. But checks showed that some of this content was fake, generated with artificial intelligence, or from older gatherings.
In one example, an image was published of a person next to a burning building with a Palestinian flag. The caption presented France's recognition of Palestine as a backdrop for the unrest. The outlet's investigation found the image had been generated with AI tools. In another example, a video claimed to show a Palestinian flag over the Eiffel Tower during the recent protests; it was determined to be fake.
Some old videos from pro-Palestinian gatherings in 2024 and 2025 were republished and presented as images of the current French protests. According to the outlet's analysis, the aim of these reposts was to reinforce the claim that pro-Palestinian supporters and Muslims were leading the unrest.
The report also examined a network of thousands of accounts that interacted through reposts, replies and references to one another. In the sample studied, reposts made up most of the activity, and a number of Israeli and European far-right accounts played a prominent role in spreading the narrative.
The significance for the discussion of Islamophobia is that anti-Muslim narratives are not built only through politicians' speeches. Old images, fake videos and widespread reposting of misleading content can also create a backdrop for presenting economic protests as a sign of a threat from Muslims or pro-Palestinian supporters.
Exploiting a crisis instead of understanding it
The French protests must be understood in the context of the country's economic and social discontent. The violence that occurred must also be examined precisely and on the basis of evidence — not used as a pretext to accuse a religious or migrant population.
Trump's remarks about the "Islamization of Paris" show that he seeks to offer a different explanation for the roots of the crisis, one focused on immigration and Islam rather than economic policy and public services. He is using European unrest to defend his restrictive policies in the United States and to respond to fears of rising Muslim figures.
The main issue, in the end, is not only what Trump says about France. It is how a cost-of-living crisis is turned into a narrative about a threat from Muslims. When economic demands are pushed to the margins and religious identity is moved to the center of the debate, neither the real causes of the crisis become clear nor is a solution offered for citizens' problems. What remains is political exploitation of public discontent and the deepening of social divides. That path deepens the crisis rather than resolving it.
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