The riots and looting across France might have been supported by leftist radicals, but National Rally leader Marine Le Pen stands to be the greatest beneficiary when the dust eventually settles.
Protesters, many of whom have been seen carrying Palestinian flags, have set fire to historic buildings and attacked civilians. Le Pen’s already insurgent brand of nationalist, law-and-order politics is finding little meaningful opposition from the left or center.
“I would say that she is seizing the moment because everything else will be forgotten […] because this question of order becomes the priority,” Tsiporah Fried, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told the Washington Examiner.
 in Paris, Thursday Aug. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)</p>
<p> ” data-large-file=”https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/marine-le-pen-vows-to-be-the-one-to-end-decades-of-anarchic-immigration-as-france-is-torn-apart-by-riots.webp” src=”https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/marine-le-pen-vows-to-be-the-one-to-end-decades-of-anarchic-immigration-as-france-is-torn-apart-by-riots.webp” alt=”Le Pen” class=”wp-image-4771597″ style=”width:403px;height:auto” srcset=”https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/marine-le-pen-vows-to-be-the-one-to-end-decades-of-anarchic-immigration-as-france-is-torn-apart-by-riots.webp 1024w, https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/marine-le-pen-vows-to-be-the-one-to-end-decades-of-anarchic-immigration-as-france-is-torn-apart-by-riots.webp?resize=300,200 300w, https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/marine-le-pen-vows-to-be-the-one-to-end-decades-of-anarchic-immigration-as-france-is-torn-apart-by-riots.webp?resize=768,512 768w” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px”><figcaption class=)
Marine Le Pen, candidate at presidential election waits at business meeting organized by the French business organization (MEDEF) in Paris, Thursday Aug. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)Le Pen and her party are currently dominating French voter intention polls and if elections were held today, she would be expected to net 34%. Jean-Luc Melenchon, the leader of left-wing political party La France Insoumise (France Unbowed), is in a distant second place with 16%. The top two in the French presidential system qualify from a more crowded field, and then have a runoff. The election is set to take place on April 18 and May 2, 2027.
LFI hitched itself to the protests weeks ago, and that choice has isolated them from almost all other parties who are shocked at the widespread arson and assault that has since unfolded. Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron’s government has failed to contain the violence, creating a crisis of authority decried by his political rivals.
Le Pen offered a subdued and pseudo-presidential address on Sunday — posing behind a wooden desk and seated in front of a French flag — in which she attacked the “Macronist toxic policies” she blames for the unrest and “Melenchon’s deputies” for “legitimizing violence.”
Urging “the French people” to “hold out for a few more months,” she made her perennial promise to end “decades of anarchic immigration, whose consequences everyone is now seeing in all areas.”
Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu announced Monday that mandatory curfews will be imposed in affected areas as the French government remains “absolutely determined to restore order” after a catastrophic failure to contain the riots.
French intelligence suspected that approximately 200,000 individuals would be mobilized for the protests — a woefully low miscalculation that left them unprepared for the approximately 500,000 rioters that materialized.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez offered his resignation on Sunday due to his ministry’s failures to anticipate or quell the demonstrators.
“On Saturday, in some major cities, you couldn’t look shopkeepers in the eye after hundreds of shops had been looted and tell them we hadn’t lost control,” Nunez said Monday. “Given the damage that has been caused, it was only right that I should hand in my resignation.”
Macron refused Nunez’s resignation. He ordered the interior minister to “put in place new operational methods for security forces” and “take all necessary steps to ensure transparency over the failures in planning and intelligence that led to the violence.”
Meanwhile, from across the Atlantic, President Donald Trump has voiced support for an immigration crackdown in line with Le Pen’s vision, though he did not mention her by name.
“The migrants have taken over France. They must CLOSE THE BORDERS, FAST!” he posted on social media on Monday. He previously blamed the importation of Islam for the violence.
Later, speaking to press assembled outside the White House, Trump said he warned Macron about civil unrest, tying it to France’s immigration policies, and warning Paris “is going to be a Muslim city very soon.”
“What’s happening in France has to do with immigration, not schools, not anything,” he said. “It’s immigration, and I told President Macron, ‘Close up your borders. … You’re going to have nothing but trouble.’ And they’ve got a lot of trouble. They let people into their country that don’t love their country. They don’t love their buildings. They don’t love their art.”
Vice President JD Vance put a finer point on Trump’s post in a statement of his own, claiming that “Western liberals imported the third world into France and other countries in the name of diversity and compassion” but “ignored fundamental questions of assimilation and compatibility.”
“I pray that France, a beautiful country of amazing people, will stop this madness before more of its landmarks burn,” Vance continued. “And I hope Americans are paying attention. This is the future congressional Democrats seek for your country.”
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<p> ” data-large-file=”https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/marine-le-pen-vows-to-be-the-one-to-end-decades-of-anarchic-immigration-as-france-is-torn-apart-by-riots-1.webp?w=1024″ src=”https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/marine-le-pen-vows-to-be-the-one-to-end-decades-of-anarchic-immigration-as-france-is-torn-apart-by-riots-1.webp” alt=”Police and rioters in Paris.” class=”wp-image-4771723″ srcset=”https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/marine-le-pen-vows-to-be-the-one-to-end-decades-of-anarchic-immigration-as-france-is-torn-apart-by-riots-1.webp 1024w, https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/marine-le-pen-vows-to-be-the-one-to-end-decades-of-anarchic-immigration-as-france-is-torn-apart-by-riots-1.webp?resize=300,200 300w, https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/marine-le-pen-vows-to-be-the-one-to-end-decades-of-anarchic-immigration-as-france-is-torn-apart-by-riots-1.webp?resize=768,512 768w” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px”><figcaption class=)
Police scuffle with protesters during a demonstration against rising living costs, joining students’ grievances, in Paris, Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)Eric Zemmour, leader of the right-wing political party Reconquete, appeared for an interview with news channel La Chaine Info on Sunday, where he argued that “the Great Replacement is not a theory; it is a fact” — and offered a characterization of the weekslong violence that cast the conflict as a race war.
He explained: “I believe what we saw yesterday was the true face of the Great Replacement. It has the appearance of hordes — Maghrebi and African barbarians who are entering the cities. It has a flag, or flags — the Palestinian flag, the Algerian flag, or even the Moroccan flag. It has allies — the antifa militias. It has a legal front, the [La France Insoumise] deputies. It has a mode of operation — looting and raids. And finally, I would say it has a historical, ideological engine — which is hatred of France and revenge for colonization.”
Zemmour is far from a front-runner in the 2027 election, currently polling around 4% and ranking approximately seventh. But the firebrand is seizing the riots as a moment to distinguish his party’s policies — not only from the left and center, but from more moderate right-wingers.
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<p> ” data-large-file=”https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/marine-le-pen-vows-to-be-the-one-to-end-decades-of-anarchic-immigration-as-france-is-torn-apart-by-riots-2.webp” src=”https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/marine-le-pen-vows-to-be-the-one-to-end-decades-of-anarchic-immigration-as-france-is-torn-apart-by-riots-2.webp” alt=”France riots” class=”wp-image-4770623″ srcset=”https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/marine-le-pen-vows-to-be-the-one-to-end-decades-of-anarchic-immigration-as-france-is-torn-apart-by-riots-2.jpg 1024w, https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/marine-le-pen-vows-to-be-the-one-to-end-decades-of-anarchic-immigration-as-france-is-torn-apart-by-riots-2.jpg?resize=300,200 300w, https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/marine-le-pen-vows-to-be-the-one-to-end-decades-of-anarchic-immigration-as-france-is-torn-apart-by-riots-2.jpg?resize=768,512 768w” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px”><figcaption class=)
Firefighters extinguish a fire after a demonstration against rising living costs, joining students’ grievances, in Paris, Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)He specifically differentiated himself from National Rally officials, who he claimed were disingenuous for not approaching the riots from a racial angle.
“There are little whites among the looters, of course […] there are flying fish, but they are not the majority of the species,” Zemmour said. “That a high-ranking official of the National Rally doesn’t understand this is the entire difference between them and me.”
Fried told the Washington Examiner that, considering Le Pen “appears quite strong on immigration,” Zemmour’s attacks seemed more like a “political maneuver to gain much more weight in the debate and in the right wing.”
TRUMP WARNS PARIS WILL BECOME ‘MUSLIM CITY’ UNLESS FRANCE CLOSES BORDERS
Antoine Leaument, a fellow deputy in parliament and communications manager of La France Insoumise, announced Monday he would be filing a legal complaint with the public prosecutor regarding “racist statements by Éric Zemmour made yesterday on LCI.”
“May justice once again do its work: prosecute and condemn once more this repeat-offending racist delinquent,” Leaument said. “Racism is not an opinion: it is a crime.”
