‘Stupid comments’: Macron hits Trump
President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday took an apparent swipe at counterpart Donald Trump for exploiting France’s riots for advantage in the US midterm election battle, as Paris prepared for more protests this weekend.
Macron, speaking during a visit to Qatar, implied that Trump, and possibly Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also in election mode, made “stupid comments” on the unrest for political gain, though he did not name either leader.
“There are people who campaign at France’s expense—leaders who are in campaign mode, whether here in the region or on the other side of the Atlantic,” he told reporters in Doha.
Macron made his remarks as he and his government struggled to get on top of a crisis that has scarred France’s image both abroad and in financial markets, six months ahead of presidential elections to choose his successor.
France’s government has admitted it “lost control” in the frenzy of street violence that erupted last weekend, when masked youths clashed with police, looted shops, and vandalized public buildings.
Trump has sought to link the “revolution” in France to “migrants, jihadists, and communists” as he campaigned for his Republican party in the United States on his anti-immigration messaging.
He also on Tuesday hailed French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who shares his ideologies, as a conservative voice, with surveys putting her as the front-runner in France’s presidential race.
Trump’s ally Netanyahu, facing his own tough election battle, on Tuesday argued that France had been hit by an “invasion of extremist Islam.”
Several analysts have dismissed the claims that migrants were driving France’s protests.
The unrest overshadowed demonstrations held on Saturday in which more than half a million people marched nationwide against the cost of living. Those rallies followed four weeks of student protests that have closed many schools across France.
Cost of living
Since the rioting—the worst France has seen in years—and ahead of further cost-of-living demonstrations this coming Saturday, Macron’s government has warned it will brook no further violence.
French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, who on Wednesday held a meeting with union leaders organizing marches, has vowed a “massive” police deployment for the fresh demonstrations called for Saturday by the Yellow Vest movement protesting rising inflation.
Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Wednesday that, of the 2,500 people taken into custody during and after the protests, 174 had been jailed, with another 917 formally prosecuted.
The convulsion in France, the European Union’s second-biggest economy after Germany, has rattled financial markets already nervous about the country’s growing debt pile and deficit.
The country’s political landscape is so fragmented that Lecornu has little chance of winning swift parliamentary consensus for a cost-cutting budget that needs to be adopted before the end of this year.
France’s neighbors Italy and Belgium have also started to experience similar unrest on a smaller scale. Italy’s government has ordered 500 troops to Milan to stem street violence there.
