How the unrest began

Before any immigration framing, the movement in France had a different starting point. High school students began marching weeks ago against teacher shortages, crumbling classrooms and an opaque university admissions system.

• •The nationwide protests on Saturday were called over rising fuel prices and falling purchasing power, and escalated in several cities into clashes with police
• •The CGT, one of France's largest unions, backed the movement and called for lower prices, higher pensions and better wages
• •Anger widened to fuel prices, which have climbed since US strikes effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, alongside other economic grievances
• •The clashes left a historic town hall torched and led to 1,800 arrests

Trump and Vance on France's unrest

The Trump France immigration claims came on Sunday, when the US president wrote on Truth Social blaming immigration for the violence and looting. "France is burning!" he wrote, blaming "the immigration of people from an entirely different world". He urged Paris to "Close your Borders and take control".

Vance had made his argument a day earlier, calling the unrest the result of what he described as a liberal failure. "Western liberals imported the third world into France," the vice-president wrote on X, adding that the country had "ignored fundamental questions about assimilation and compatibility".

A White House campaign push

The unrest is being folded into the Republican campaign against Congressional Democrats ahead of the 3 November midterms.

• •The official White House X account posted on Monday: "If you import the third world, you become the third world."
• •House Speaker Mike Johnson posted that France was descending into chaos because of open borders, calling it a chilling warning for Americans
• •Senator Eric Schmitt said "The anti-civilization Left is devouring France. It will devour America if we let it."
• •Vance said he hoped Americans were paying attention as they cast their ballots, concluding, "This is the future congressional Democrats seek for your country"

Before Trump arrived on stage at a rally in Park City, Kansas, giant TV screens played about 10 minutes of Fox News coverage of the unrest blaming French immigration policies.

Echoes of the National Rally and what comes next

The rhetoric closely matches that of France's far-right National Rally, whose president Jordan Bardella described the violence as a convergence of ultra-left extremism and delinquent populations. Trump and Vance have both publicly backed Marine Le Pen. The unrest has added pressure on Emmanuel Macron six months before an April election to choose his successor.

On Monday, before flying to Kansas, Trump told reporters at the White House he had warned Macron he was "making a big mistake". "Paris is going to be a Muslim city very soon, and that wasn't the deal," he said, adding that the US had closed its borders and France had not. Overnight curfews were issued for a number of French cities, including parts of Paris.