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Les Republicans Pounce! Media Denounces 'Far Right' Candidate in France For Noticing Riots Are a Bad Thing

We’ve exported the “fiery but mostly peaceful protests” narrative to France. Now, the media is sending them the “Republicans pounce” storyline, as well.

As you’ve probably heard, France is burning thanks to “student” protests. I put that word in quotation marks because there’s every indication that these riots are being funded by the same network that boosts Marxist protests in the United States, as well. But that’s not being reported.

Instead, this is what happened in Limoges during unrest the BBC said was “mostly peaceful.”

The Limoges Town Hall survived two world wars and stood as a symbol of French history. Now it will be remembered as a symbol of the country’s downfall. This is so incredibly tragic. https://t.co/35t2HtvSP1 — Dr. Maalouf ‏ (@realMaalouf) October 18, 2026

The Limoges Town Hall survived two world wars and stood as a symbol of French history.

Now it will be remembered as a symbol of the country’s downfall.

This is so incredibly tragic. https://t.co/35t2HtvSP1

— Dr. Maalouf ‏ (@realMaalouf) October 18, 2026

Fiery! But “mostly peaceful.”

This is being reported pretty widely, even if the genesis of the riots isn’t being accurately conveyed. What’s receiving less coverage is the political subtext of the riots, particularly as France may be about to undergo a generational political change.

French President Emmanuel Macron is term-limited, and the man probably thanks the sweet Lord (or whatever he worships) that he is, since he was about as popular as a diphtheria outbreak even before the country collapsed into rioting.

Who will replace him remains to be seen, but polling says that the top two candidates are likely populist conservative Marine Le Pen of the National Rally — often painted as France’s version of Donald Trump — and leftist hardliner Jean-Luc Mélenchon of La France Insoumise in second.

France uses a runoff system where the top two candidates face each other if neither attains 50 percent of the vote, which seems likely. In this scenario, Le Pen is ahead of Mélenchon by a wide margin.

Given that Le Pen has been a longtime immigration hawk and a law-and-order candidate, it’s not difficult to see why the current unrest would play into her hands. A politician would be a fool not to call a spade a spade, particularly if they’ve been doing so for decades, like Le Pen has.

But, as Heather Mac Donald of the conservative Manhattan Institute noted, pretty much every report out of France about the political repercussions from our establishment media uses the same playbook: the “Republicans pounce” trope repackaged for the National Rally.

“The mainstream media are fuming. Marine Le Pen, head of France’s most popular party, National Rally, is exploiting the French riots for her political advantage, the media grouse,” Mac Donald said on X on Tuesday.

“Le Pen and her right-hand man, Jordan Bardella, portray the riots as the confirmation of everything they have been warning about for years, especially regarding Third World immigration. This is a ruse, complains the press and its establishment sources, a mere rhetorical trick.”

The mainstream media are fuming. Marine Le Pen, head of France’s most popular party, National Rally, is exploiting the French riots for her political advantage, the media grouse. Le Pen and her right-hand man, Jordan Bardella, portray the riots as the confirmation of everything they have been warning about for years, especially regarding Third World immigration. This is a ruse, complains the press and its establishment sources, a mere rhetorical trick. A front-page article in today’s New York Times quotes a political scientist at Paris’s Sciences Po: “The picture of France emerging this morning, in light of all the destruction, plays well into their hands.” The Wall Street Journal sounds the same note today: “The social instability over the weekend absolutely plays into Le Pen’s campaign that the establishment has delivered chaos,” said Mujtaba Rahman, from the risk analysis firm Eurasia Group. Even the papers’ headlines echo each other: “France’s Far Right Seizes the Moment as Rioting Stuns the Country” (New York Times); “Marine Le Pen Seizes on French Chaos to Present Herself as Leader in Waiting” (Wall Street Journal). It is necessary to deconstruct these far-right narratives; thankfully, the press is there to help us. The violence “perfectly aligned with the image the National Rally has long painted of a France divided into two and battling for survival,” a political science professor at the University of Nice, Côte d’Azur told the New York Times. The Wall Street Journal writes that the “far-right” Le Pen has “cast” France as a nation adrift, “buffeted by waves of immigration and lawlessness that have torn at the country’s social fabric.” It is mere coincidence that that image of a divided, degraded France constructed by the National Rally and the violence on the streets seem to align. That alignment does not mean that the National Rally was right, just that its demagogy was opportune. But the waves of........

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