President Donald Trump predicted that Paris would soon become “a Muslim city,” warning French President Emmanuel Macron that his approach to immigration was putting France’s future at risk as violent demonstrations swept the country.
Trump blamed migrants for the destruction and demanded tougher border restrictions, arguing that European leaders needed to expel people he accused of threatening their own countries.
“As you know, Paris is going to be a Muslim city very soon, and that wasn’t the deal. That wasn’t the deal,” Trump declared Monday.
Up to 2,000 stores were targeted by looters during the weekend’s demonstrations in France, while Fox News cited approximately 2,500 arrests associated with the nationwide disturbances.
Fires were also set, and officers came under attack as smaller groups engaged in violence amid protests that drew an estimated 500,000 people across the country Saturday.
Trump insisted that Macron had ignored warnings he had delivered years earlier about allowing too many people to enter France.
“I told Emmanuel, ‘You should close up your borders,’” the president recalled.
He described warning Macron years earlier that France was admitting too many people from abroad, presenting the country’s present difficulties as a consequence of that policy.
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French President Macron had connected the growing dissatisfaction to higher fuel prices following the American war with Iran. A reporter raised that criticism as Trump was preparing to leave the White House on Monday for a campaign rally in Kansas.
Trump instead insisted that European governments were endangering themselves by failing to restrict immigration and remove people he considered dangerous.
“If Europe doesn’t close its borders and bring the criminals out, like the people that are protesting, Europe is finished,” he warned.
.@POTUS on the France riots: "Paris is going to be a Muslim city very soon, and that wasn't the deal… Emmanuel should've closed his borders a long time ago. I told him to do it." pic.twitter.com/Ep8mzgPVq8
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) October 19, 2026
He described certain immigrants as enemies of French society, accusing them of hostility toward the nation’s people, landmarks and cultural heritage.
Trump’s prediction concerned a French capital with a somewhat greater Muslim population share than the country’s estimated 10%, although the reporting provided no evidence that Paris was approaching a Muslim majority.
France’s Muslim communities include immigrants and descendants of families from territories once governed by France in Africa and the Middle East.
Meanwhile, recordings of the recent street violence featured people of different ethnic and racial backgrounds.
The movement that brought demonstrators into French streets initially concerned problems in schools. Over the following month, complaints about expensive necessities, inflation and employment prospects became part of the demands.
Student grievances gave rise to the demonstrations, but the movement subsequently attracted dozens of organizations with political and social interests beyond education.
Of the 54 groups and movements identified in a Fox News Digital investigation, just 16 represented students or young people. The others included labor organizations, socialist and communist groups, Palestinian activists, Islamic organizations and people associated with the Yellow Vests movement.
The investigation connected those organizations to the protests without establishing that each had participated in or directed violence.
At his Kansas rally Monday night, Trump used France’s turmoil as an example of the future he claimed his immigration policies would prevent in the United States.
“Look at what’s happening in France, a once great nation, that is being conquered, looted and burned to the ground by migrants, jihadists and communists who hate Christianity and hate, frankly, the western civilization itself,” he told supporters.
Trump also accused “globalist left-wing politicians” of encouraging immigration on a scale he considered incompatible with Western cultural values.
“They’re destroying that country and we’re not gonna let that happen to this country!” he promised.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) brought the French demonstrations into the debate over American border enforcement, claiming that a Democratic return to power would invite similar dangers.
“France is descending into chaos because they wanted OPEN BORDERS — just like the socialist Democrats in America,” Johnson wrote in a Monday post on X.
France is descending into chaos because they wanted OPEN BORDERS — just like the socialist Democrats in America.
What we are witnessing is a chilling warning for all Americans of what happens if the radical Marxist insurgent left gets their way.
America is not merely in a… https://t.co/Jkx70HS1y9
— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) October 18, 2026
Johnson went on to portray the dispute over immigration as a fight over the country’s freedoms and identity. He warned that Democrats would allow unauthorized immigrants into the United States in numbers that, in his view, would threaten its future.
A video of a building burning in France had also drawn a response from Vice President JD Vance over the weekend. Sharing the footage on social media, he attributed the unrest to European immigration decisions.
“Western liberals imported the third world into France and other countries in the name of diversity and compassion,” Vance wrote.
He maintained that European policymakers had dismissed warnings about whether newcomers could adapt to the societies receiving them.
“They ignored fundamental questions of assimilation and compatibility. They were told it would lead to this and they didn’t listen,” Vance continued.
The vice president urged Americans to regard the French violence as a warning about what he believed congressional Democrats wanted for the United States.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) challenged that interpretation, arguing that the anger among demonstrators arose from unequal economic opportunities rather than the origins of immigrant populations.
To make his case, Khanna drew comparisons among young protesters in several European countries, describing a generation struggling to secure basic opportunities.
“From the high schools of France to the streets of Madrid to the universities of Tirana, young people are telling their governments the same thing: in an age of massive wealth inequality, they want a future they can believe in,” he wrote on X.
For French students and teachers, he identified overcrowding and inadequate school resources among the concerns. Elsewhere, he pointed to the price of housing in Spain and frustration over employment and corruption in Albania.
Khanna rejected Vance’s argument that the arrival of immigrants from the global south explained France’s turmoil, identifying the unequal distribution of wealth and power as the greater problem.
“@JDVance says this is what happens when a nation lets in too many immigrants from the global south,” the California Democrat wrote.
“He is not just morally wrong, but misreading the moment,” Khanna argued.
The congressman attributed the demonstrations to the concentration of money and influence among a small segment of society, contending that young people were losing confidence in their prospects.
He urged the United States to “listen to our young” and advocated “an economic and political transformation.”
