French President Emmanuel Macron has accused foreign leaders of turning violent riots in France into political ammunition, warning that misinformation and artificial intelligence-generated images are being used to distort events and inflame tensions.
Without naming them directly, Macron appeared to take aim at US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing political leaders preparing for crucial elections of exploiting France’s unrest to advance their own agendas.
His remarks have opened another front in an already tense international debate over immigration, Islam, national security and the growing power of disinformation to shape public opinion.
At the centre of the controversy are violent demonstrations that spread across Paris and several other French cities, including Lyon, Marseille and Nice, leaving damaged property, looted businesses and confrontations between police officers and masked protesters.
But while French authorities have faced questions over their handling of the violence, Macron’s focus has extended beyond the streets. He has accused foreign figures of amplifying misleading narratives about the unrest, turning a domestic crisis into an international political spectacle.
Speaking during a visit to Doha, the Qatari capital, the French president suggested that some foreign leaders were more interested in winning political arguments than establishing the truth.
He said they were effectively campaigning for upcoming elections “at France’s expense”.
The accusations have intensified an international dispute over who should be held responsible for the riots, what they reveal about France’s social tensions and whether manipulated online content is making an already volatile situation more dangerous.
Macron’s apparent message to Trump and Netanyahu
Macron did not explicitly identify the leaders he was criticising. However, his reference to politicians in “campaign mode”, both in the Middle East and across the Atlantic, appeared to point towards Netanyahu and Trump.
Both leaders had publicly blamed immigration and what they described as extremist influences for the unrest.
Netanyahu, who was facing parliamentary elections the following week, reportedly argued in an interview with Israel’s i24 channel that France had been struck by an “invasion of extremist Islam”.
He also recalled warning Macron after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, that France could experience similar security problems if the threat was not confronted.
“If we do not eliminate them here, you will have them in Paris,” Netanyahu said of the warning he claimed to have given Macron. He subsequently argued that events in France demonstrated the validity of his prediction.
Trump also weighed in, linking the riots to mass immigration and accusing European governments of allowing people into their countries who, in his words, hated them.
Close your borders
“Close your borders and take control before it is too late!” Trump urged Macron.
The comments transformed the French unrest into a wider political argument about immigration controls, integration, extremism and the ability of European governments to maintain public order.
Macron, however, rejected the suggestion that the violence demonstrated France had been overwhelmed by migrants or Islamists.
“We had people claiming that we had been invaded by hordes of migrants and Islamists, which is completely false,” he said.
The French president acknowledged that foreign manipulation of information had occurred after the riots, even as he rejected the claim that there was visible foreign interference in the events themselves.
His distinction is significant: he was not necessarily claiming that foreign governments organised the street violence, but that misleading information about it was being circulated and exploited afterwards.
Nearly 150 jailed as France confronts the aftermath
Behind the international political confrontation is a domestic crisis that has left French authorities under pressure.
Nearly 150 people have been jailed, while more than 800 have appeared before the courts following the riots.
Footage circulating online showed clashes between masked demonstrators and police, alongside images of damaged buildings, destroyed property and shops being looted.
The unrest affected Paris and other major cities, including Lyon, Marseille and Nice, creating a public-order challenge that prompted criticism of the government’s response.
French officials admitted that police had “lost control” during the violence.
The riots came after weeks of student protests over conditions in high schools, although Macron’s government subsequently blamed much of the disorder on agitators from what it described as ultra-left fringe groups.
After the violence, Macron promised that authorities would take an uncompromising approach towards those responsible.
The government now faces two related challenges: holding perpetrators accountable and preventing misleading accounts of the unrest from deepening divisions within French society.
The controversy also raises questions about whether the initial protests, the subsequent riots and the online narratives surrounding them are being treated as one issue when they may involve different causes and actors.
The AI-generated images that fuelled the controversy
One of the most troubling aspects of the dispute is the circulation of fabricated or misleading videos and images presented as evidence of events in France.
Macron said foreign leaders had been influenced by fake videos generated using artificial intelligence, although the available account does not establish that every disputed statement was based on such material.
The BBC reported that it had reviewed more than 15 examples of fake news videos circulating on social media that researchers at the US-based dTeam attributed to a Russian disinformation operation known as Matryoshka.
The videos reportedly used branding resembling that of established French and European news organisations, including Le Monde, Euronews and France 24.
Such imitation can make fabricated material appear credible, particularly when viewers encounter it through reposts or short clips without the context needed to verify its origin.
The apparent objective of this type of operation is not necessarily to persuade every viewer to accept one specific claim. It can also be to create confusion, undermine trust in legitimate journalism and amplify existing divisions.
Researchers quoted in the report said the focus on amplifying unrest was consistent with tactics associated with Russian disinformation campaigns. However, the precise reach and impact of individual videos appeared limited.
The distinction matters. Evidence that a video is fabricated does not, by itself, establish who commissioned it, how widely it influenced public opinion or whether it changed the course of events.
Nevertheless, the circulation of fake material during a crisis can make it more difficult for citizens to distinguish documented incidents from invented stories.
The elderly couple image that reached millions
A separate case illustrates how quickly an AI-generated image can become part of a national controversy.
BBC Verify traced a widely circulated image that purported to show an elderly couple being robbed and left in their underwear in Paris to an obscure website.
Sabrina Hania, director of Infos-Israel.News, told the BBC that her team had created the image using ChatGPT without a reference photograph.
The image was published on October 17, shortly after a television journalist reported an alleged incident, citing police information. However, the claim remained unconfirmed, and French media reported that prosecutors had no information supporting the incident’s occurrence.
The image was initially labelled as AI-generated on X and Instagram. It was later shared on X without a disclaimer in a post that attracted more than six million views.
Hania said she regretted that the image had been taken out of context and had misled so many people. She blamed those who redistributed it without identifying it as artificial intelligence-generated content.
The episode demonstrates how a fabricated visual can acquire the appearance of evidence simply through repetition.
A person encountering the image for the first time may have no reason to know it originated from an AI tool. If the accompanying caption claims that the incident occurred during the riots, the image can reinforce an existing belief before its authenticity is questioned.
The danger is particularly acute when fabricated content involves crime, immigration or religious identity, subjects that can provoke strong emotional reactions.
Once a misleading image has been viewed millions of times, correcting the record may not reach the same audience.
Russia, Iran and Algeria under scrutiny
The controversy has also drawn attention to possible foreign disinformation networks.
According to a report by the Financial Times cited in the BBC account, European Union regulators were examining possible foreign online interference and disinformation campaigns surrounding the French riots and similar outbreaks of unrest in other European countries.
The newspaper reportedly quoted unnamed security officials who said pro-Russian and far-right social media accounts associated with previous disinformation campaigns had circulated violent videos in an effort to generate further chaos.
Iran and Algeria were also suspected of being behind some of the messaging, according to the report.
David Colon, a disinformation researcher at France’s Sciences Po university, was quoted as saying that pro-Kremlin influencers linked to the Russian campaign Storm-1516 had amplified the events and spread false narratives.
These claims must be distinguished from established findings about the riots themselves. The reported investigations and researchers’ assessments point to suspected information operations; they do not establish that Russia, Iran or Algeria organised the street violence.
The allegations nevertheless carry diplomatic significance because France has strained relationships with several of the countries mentioned.
Paris is among Ukraine’s strongest military supporters in its war against Russia. Its relationship with Algeria remains shaped by the legacy of French colonial rule and Algeria’s independence war, which ended in 1962. Relations with Iran have also been strained amid the conflict involving Iran, the United States and Israel.
In that environment, the spread of disinformation can become more than a question of misleading social media posts. It can feed into existing geopolitical rivalries and deepen suspicion between governments.
A crisis bigger than immigration
The arguments advanced by Trump and Netanyahu have placed immigration and extremism at the centre of the international response to the French riots.
Macron’s rebuttal challenges that framing, particularly the suggestion that the violence proves France has been overwhelmed by migrants or Islamists.
Yet the wider debate cannot be resolved simply by deciding which political leader has the most forceful rhetoric.
The authorities must establish what happened during the riots, identify those responsible for crimes and distinguish peaceful protest from violent disorder. At the same time, claims about the role of immigration, religious extremism or political movements require evidence rather than assumptions based on viral footage.
The danger is that dramatic images can encourage audiences to accept the broadest explanation before the facts are established.
A video of a shop being looted may document a genuine crime. It does not automatically establish the identity, nationality or religious beliefs of those involved, nor does it prove that immigration caused the incident.
Likewise, identifying fabricated images does not mean every report of violence is false.
The challenge is to investigate actual events without allowing false narratives to dictate the conclusions.
The political price of a distorted narrative
Macron’s intervention reflects a growing concern among governments and researchers: the information surrounding a crisis can become almost as politically consequential as the crisis itself.
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Foreign leaders can use unrest in another country to reinforce arguments they are already making to domestic audiences. Social media users can spread dramatic material without checking its source. AI tools can produce convincing images that appear to document events that never happened.
Together, these developments create an environment in which political claims can travel faster than verification.
For Macron, the immediate issue is France’s public order and the credibility of its institutions. For Trump and Netanyahu, the unrest has become an opportunity to advance arguments about border controls, immigration and security.
Lastly, for European regulators, the allegations of foreign disinformation raise a separate concern about whether outside actors are deliberately exploiting domestic tensions to weaken public confidence.
The central question is whether the public can still establish what happened when authentic footage, fabricated images and political interpretations circulate together.
Macron’s accusations may intensify the diplomatic dispute, but they also point to a problem that extends beyond France: when political leaders use unrest to advance their own agendas, and AI-generated content makes false claims look real, the battle is no longer only over what happened on the streets. It is also over who gets to define what the public believes happened.