As midterms loom, Trump seizes on France unrest for political gain

US President Donald Trump used the protests roiling France to score some quick political points Monday, as the upcoming midterm elections force his Republican party to face strong headwinds.

While speaking with reporters Trump recalled an exchange with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron: "I told him a long time ago, you're making a big mistake in France. You're letting everybody from the world come in...Paris is going to be a Muslim city very soon."

Earlier Monday, the 80-year-old president wrote on his Truth Social platform: "The migrants have taken over France. They must CLOSE THE BORDERS, FAST!"

Cost-of-living demonstrations broke out across France over the weekend, with many devolving into looting and violent conflict, prompting officials to institute partial curfews Monday.

While the French protests were inspired by soaring inflation, Trump has molded the violent clashes with police into evidence in favour of the anti-immigration policies he used to successfully campaign for reelection in 2024.

"They're taking this French crisis and turning it into a campaign argument," JC Lintzenich, a senior fellow with the German Marshall Fund think tank, told AFP.

Conservative talking points

Opinion polls heavily favour Trump's rival Democratic Party in the November 3 midterm elections, which will determine who will take control of Congress.

With just two weeks to go before Americans go to the polls, Trump has grasped any strategy he can to compel voters to support the Republican party and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.

"Since the beginning of the MAGA movement, Europe has been an extension of the US political battlefield, so it's not surprising that when there are events like the unrest from October 17, the political machine gets moving," Justin Vaisse, a professor of US foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University, told AFP.

As videos of France's unrest began surfacing on social media, Trump's Vice President JD Vance wrote Saturday on X: "Western liberals imported the third world into France...they ignored fundamental questions of assimilation and compatibility."

Right-wing US media personalities, including Glenn Beck, Benny Johnson, Nick Sortor and Jack Posobiec made similar points, blaming immigrants from Muslim-majority countries for causing a crisis in Western identity.

"The riots are viewed as validation of the warnings against immigration in general and Muslim immigration, if such a thing exists," Vaisse said.

Celia Belin, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and head of its Paris office, views the commentary as an "export of domestic policies" from a US administration that openly supports nationalist parties in Europe.

She told AFP that Trump and his allies "rushed into this argument, the same one that Vance had presented in Munich" in 2025, in a controversial speech described as a US culture war against Europe, with the goal of "fanning the flames."

Polling priorities

Experts note that this rhetorical strategy, while it may have succeeded in 2024, is not necessarily what US voters want to hear these days.

"When you look at the campaign ads here -- I'm in South Carolina right now -- it's about healthcare, domestic issues," Lintzenich said. 

"The international element is a blip on the radar, and Ukraine, and Iran, and other ongoing national security issues rate higher than the current French instability," he continued.

A Pew Research poll this month found the economy plays an important role in the choice of 82 percent of US voters, a far higher number than immigration (59 percent) or race-related issues (36 percent).

Though Trump has followed through on his 2024 campaign promise to crack down on immigration, he has fared less successfully on his other promise to tamp down on inflation, with his tariff policies and war with Iran spiking prices across the economy, plunging his approval rating to record lows.

Vaisse said using linking US identitarian rhetoric with the events in France "is not going to win a single vote" for Republicans, though it could "mobilize the base" to vote.