President Donald Trump has again warned French President Emmanuel Macron that France risks “losing” the country if it does not confront what he calls an immigration crisis, as protests continue to spread across Paris and other parts of Europe.
“It’s not a school problem. It’s an immigration problem,” Trump told Fox News Digital on Tuesday night, after a campaign rally in Texas ahead of next week’s U.S. midterm elections. “I’ve been saying that to President Macron for a long time, who I like a lot, by the way. But I said, ‘You’re going to end up losing your country if you don’t do something.'”
The remarks come as student-led demonstrations in France have widened into broader protests driven by local grievances, filling streets, triggering clashes with police, and spreading influence to other European cities.
Trump said he discussed France’s immigration situation earlier this week with Charles Kushner, the U.S. ambassador to France, and that he believes the issue is behind the unrest. “You have people that hate France,” Trump said. “They hate the buildings, hate the art, they hate the people. And they’re in there, and you have to get them out.”
He described the situation in France and across Europe as “very sad,” and said his warnings to Macron go back ten years. “Something has to happen, and they better do something,” he said. “I’ve been saying it for 10 years, too.”
Trump has raised concerns about immigration in Europe since his first presidential campaign in 2016, the year before Macron took office in 2017. He has previously credited his own immigration policies with keeping similar unrest from taking hold in the United States.
Macron pushes back
Macron last week accused unnamed foreign leaders of making “unacceptable and even stupid” comments about the unrest, which he characterized as false claims made for political advantage. He did not name Trump or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, though both the United States and Israel are currently in election cycles.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said “nearly 1,000 people” were arrested Saturday as protests resumed across the country. Macron has blamed “ultra-left groups whose aim is to bring down the Republic” for leading the demonstrations and said protests organized by “individuals or groups with no legitimate authority” would be banned.
“Ultra-left groups whose aim is to bring down the Republic” are leading the protests, Macron said.
Macron has warned that anyone caught looting or damaging property will be made to pay for the damage, and tens of thousands of police officers have been deployed nationwide. A Fox News Digital investigation found roughly 50 Antifa groups among nearly 300 groups mobilizing around the protests, alongside a wider network of communist, socialist, far-left and anti-Israel organizations.
Unrest has also spread beyond France this month, with violence reported in Rome and in Albania’s capital, Tirana, where demonstrators set fire to government buildings.
Fox News Digital said it had reached out to Macron’s office for comment.
