Maréchal: Youth Riots the Result of ‘Unassimilated Immigration’ and a ‘Hatred of France’
by Kurt Zindulka
French Member of the European Parliament Marion Maréchal denounced the “taboo” around discussions of the underlying causes of the youth revolt spreading across the country, which she said is the failure to assimilate immigrant groups into French culture.
The demonstrations and riots ostensibly over a lack of school funding will hit their one-month anniversary this week, with mayhem and violence continuing despite thousands of arrests.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu told the Senate that 937 police officers and gendarmes, 149 school staff, and 248 students had been injured so far in the violent demonstrations. Meanwhile, Minister of National Education Édouard Geffray revealed that 7,950 people have been arrested, including 6,773 minors, during the protests.
Appearing on La Chaîne Info, French MEP Marion Maréchal said that the establishment media and political class in Paris have failed to address the root causes of the unrest, which are not the issues facing the education system, but rather failures within the immigration system and the ability to integrate foreign populations, including those born in France, into the culture, such as in hotspots like the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, which has seen decades of mass migration from North Africa’s Maghreb region.
“The link between these acts of violence is, for me, yet another symptom of the mass, unassimilated immigration that expresses itself through high school student mobilisation, just as it would express itself through a PSG match won or lost, through Bastille Day, through a demonstration for Gaza,” she said.
The president of the Identité-Libertés group in the European Parliament added that there is a section of “youth from immigrant backgrounds that seizes the slightest pretext to unleash its hatred of France, its institutions, and the uniform.”