Widespread urban violence that swept across Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Nice and other major French cities in the wake of weeks of student-led high school protests over living conditions has triggered an international diplomatic row, with French President Emmanuel Macron accusing multiple foreign leaders of exploiting the unrest for their own domestic electoral gains.
Speaking during an official visit to Doha, Qatar, Macron stopped short of naming the leaders he targeted, but made clear his criticism fell on figures campaigning in upcoming votes who made divisive statements about the riots “at France’s expense,” noting they were operating “whether here in the region or on the other side of the Atlantic.” The accusation is widely understood to target Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces parliamentary elections next week, and former U.S. President Donald Trump, who is campaigning for the midterm elections in November.
Netanyahu drew fierce pushback after claiming in an interview with Israel’s i24 News that France is facing an “invasion of extremist Islam,” repeating a warning he gave Macron following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack that “if we do not eliminate them here, you will have them in Paris.” He added that “that is exactly what is happening” amid the French unrest. For his part, Trump pinned the blame for the violence on mass immigration to France, arguing the turmoil “is not about school” but “about people coming into the countries that hate the country.” He issued a direct call to Macron to “close your borders and take control before it is too late.”
Macron confirmed that there is no evidence of direct foreign interference in the outbreak of the violence itself, but slammed what he called “foreign manipulation of information afterwards” that fueled false and inflammatory claims. He specifically called out baseless conspiracies that France had been “invaded by hordes of migrants and Islamists,” which he described as completely false. The French president added that the foreign leaders who repeated these claims were influenced by fabricated AI-generated videos and disinformation spread online.
In the wake of the unrest, nearly 150 people have been jailed and over 800 have been brought before French courts. Viral footage circulating on social media has captured intense running battles between masked rioters and police, widespread property damage and widespread looting of retail stores. The French government has publicly acknowledged that police temporarily “lost control” of areas gripped by the worst violence. In the aftermath of the unrest, Macron has vowed that authorities will take an “uncompromising” stance against what he called “agitators from ultra-left fringe groups,” which he blames for inciting most of the violence.
Multiple independent investigations have backed Macron’s claims of widespread disinformation tied to the unrest. The UK’s *Financial Times* reported that European Union regulators are currently probing possible foreign online interference and coordinated disinformation campaigns tied to the French riots, as well as similar recent unrest across other EU member states. Citing unnamed security sources, the outlet noted that pro-Russian accounts and far-right social media pages linked to past disinformation operations have actively spread violent footage to amplify chaos and deepen domestic divisions in France. The report also named Iran and Algeria as additional suspects linked to some of the misleading messaging.
David Colon, a disinformation researcher at France’s prestigious Sciences Po university, confirmed that “pro-Kremlin influencers” tied to the Russian disinformation operation codenamed Storm-1516 “amplified the events and spread a number of false narratives.” Tensions between France and Russia run high, as France is one of the most vocal military backers of Ukraine in its ongoing war against Russian invasion. France also faces longstanding strained tensions with Algeria, a former French colony that fought a bloody 1962 war of independence, and with Iran amid the latter’s ongoing regional conflicts with the U.S. and Israel.
BBC Verify’s own analysis has identified more than 15 examples of fake news videos circulating on social media that researchers from U.S.-based dTeam trace to a long-running Russian disinformation operation known as Matryoshka. These fake videos intentionally mimic the branding of major established French news outlets including Le Monde, Euronews and France 24 to mislead viewers into believing they are legitimate reporting. While individual videos from Matryoshka have so far had limited reach, experts note that their focus on amplifying French domestic unrest aligns with well-documented Russian disinformation tactics designed to destabilize Western nations.
In addition to fabricated videos, BBC Verify also traced one of the most viral AI-generated images circulating online — which purported to show an elderly Parisian couple robbed and left naked by rioters — to an Israeli media outlet. Sabrina Hania, director of Infos-Israel.News, confirmed her team created the image using ChatGPT on October 17, shortly after a television journalist cited unconfirmed “police information” about the alleged incident. French prosecutors have confirmed they have no evidence that the event ever occurred. While the original post labelled the image as AI-generated when it was first shared on X and Instagram, it was later reshared hundreds of thousands of times without any disclaimer, amassing more than six million views. Hania said she regrets the image was taken out of context and misled so many people, placing blame on users who reshared it without disclosing it was AI-generated fabrications.