OPINION:
President Trump recently declared, “What’s happening in France is nothing less than out-of-control mass migration. This isn’t about schools, this is about Islam wanting to take over a once great country!”
Unfortunately, although the political left has attempted to disguise the current riots as a response to the “conditions in French schools,” Mr. Trump is correct: They are the inevitable consequence of France’s hyper-liberal migration policies.
France is now fraught with insecurity and bursting with anarchy thanks to the Macron government’s acceptance into French society of hordes of illicit migrants from the Middle East and North Africa.
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How have these migrants thanked France? First, they have infested it with sexual assault and rape. Dozens of people are arrested annually in France for terrorist offenses. In 2023, foreigners accounted for 67% of solved public-space rape cases in Paris, out of 97 total reported public-space cases.
Data now confirms that, since 2016, incidents of physical violence in France have skyrocketed by an average of 11% every year.
Women are not the only victims of this heinous violence. Boys and girls alike have been frequently raped by migrants. In 2024, a 12-year-old Jewish girl was reportedly raped by three migrants as payback for Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip.
During the current riots, female police officers have been openly brutalized with the casual disdain and sexually charged violence that typifies the MENA region.
MENA migrants have also inundated France with other violent crimes and murders. In 2025, migrants committed 18% of all homicides and 33% of all unarmed theft, despite the fact that they make up only 8% of France’s population.
They also perpetrate 60% of all violent theft and 38% of all physical assault on Ile-de-France public transport.
According to 2022 Paris police data, migrants were responsible for 70.4% of all violent robberies and 75.6% of all thefts in Paris. Mr. Macron’s France has been labeled as “more dangerous than Mexico,” and even Mr. Macron himself agrees. “When we look at crime in Paris, we cannot fail to see that at least half of the crime we observe comes from people who are foreigners, either who are in an irregular situation or awaiting asylum.”
MENA migrants have also imported Islamic terrorism and extremism into France. Terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda and the Islamic State group continue to target France with jihad and atrocities.
In recent years, dozens of individuals have been arrested in France annually for terrorist offenses, and the country remains a primary target for extremist plots. Paris was even forced to cancel its historic New Year’s Eve celebration because of severe security risks.
Over the past decade, France has suffered dozens of major terrorist attacks. In 2023, 67% of all terrorist attacks in the European Union occurred in France, though the majority were linked to Corsican separatists. That year, extremists violently attacked dozens of police stations and injured over 700 police officers during the summer months alone.
MENA migrants have carved out a diverse array of violent Islamic enclaves and “no-go zones” in France. The French national police union has confirmed that “there are no-go zones in France where the police cannot intervene” and that “the police can’t apply the law in these areas, they are attacked.”
Paris police officers have acknowledged that they cannot even enter various sectors of the city because if they do, they will certainly be attacked by hostile migrants.
Huge swaths of historic French cities — including Paris, Marseille and Roubaix — are now considered “lost territory.” Even France’s domestic intelligence agency, the General Directorate for Internal Security, has conceded that more than 150 districts are “in possession of the Islamists.” No-go zones exist in 859 cities and house 6% of the total population, according to Alain Chouet, former head of security intelligence at France’s foreign intelligence agency.
Mr. Trump is right: The riots in France are not some juvenile reflex or degenerate response to the “earning conditions” in French schools. The country is now fraught with insecurity and bursting with anarchy because its government has accommodated hordes of illicit migrants from the Middle East and North Africa.
The imported hatred of the West openly roiling just beneath the placid veneer of French society threatens to soon spill out and engulf all of France.
• William Barclay is an award-winning political theorist and one of Canada’s leading conservative voices. X @WillBarclayPCBG.
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