French President Emmanuel Macron has rejected claims that France was invaded by migrants and Islamists during last weekend's unrest, accusing foreign leaders of campaigning at the country's expense. His comments in the Qatari capital Doha on Wednesday came as the government prepared for fresh protests on Saturday with security talks and a major police deployment.
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Anyone seeking to cause disorder during Saturday's protests will be stopped, Macron said, adding that he would meet French intelligence services on Thursday.
Last weekend's demonstrations against the cost of living, fuel prices and worsening conditions in schools were accompanied by violence and looting in several French cities.
Nearly 2,400 people have been arrested, the Interior Ministry said. By Tuesday, 149 people had been jailed.
AI fakes and migrant claims
There had been no “visible foreign interference in the events that took place”, Macron said. What followed instead was “foreign manipulation of information” that led to “comments as unacceptable as they were stupid from many, including foreign leaders”.
“There are people campaigning at France's expense – leaders who are in campaign mode, whether in the region or on the other side of the Atlantic.”
Macron pointed in particular to false images circulating online.
“We saw AI-generated images showing scenes that never happened in France. We've had people saying we'd been invaded by hordes of migrants and Islamists, which is totally false,” he said.
Such comments showed which foreign figures genuinely supported France, Macron added, saying that those speaking badly about the country “annoy me”.
French PM to meet unions as government prepares for more protests
Macron's comments were an apparent reponse to remarks by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump was one of the foreign leaders concerned, “among others”, Macron replied when questioned by a journalist, though he never said Trump's name himself, Reuters reported.
At a rally in Kansas on Monday ahead of the US midterm elections, Trump blamed migrants, jihadists and communists for the violence in France and warned that the opposition Democrats wanted the same for the United States.
Similar remarks came from Netanyahu, who also faces an election. France had “given in to the invasion of extremist Islam”, the Israeli prime minister said on Tuesday.
Fresh protests planned
Fresh demonstrations are planned across France on Saturday.
Organisers from the Yellow Vest protest movement have formally applied to hold a march in Paris from Place de la Bastille to Opéra. The Paris branch of the CGT trade union and the student group Union Etudiante are also expected to mobilise.
Macron said anyone seeking to cause disorder at Saturday's demonstrations would be prevented from doing so.
He said France did not currently need to declare a state of emergency, arguing that existing powers available to local authorities were enough to maintain order. But he left open the possibility of using emergency powers if the situation required it.
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A massive police deployment is planned, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has said, while Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez has said the military will support the security forces.
Lecornu met five major union confederations at his Matignon office on Wednesday as the government sought to contain the wider social crisis.
The talks were expected to cover security around demonstrations as well as the budget, purchasing power, fuel prices and the demands of high-school students.
High-school representatives were not invited to the meeting, drawing criticism from the CFDT and CGT trade unions. CGT leader Sophie Binet said the government needed to respond to the protests with political answers rather than repression.
Several unions have separately called a nationwide day of strikes and protests for 5 November.
(with newswires)