NEW YORK — As protests by high school students angry over deteriorating school conditions spread across France, U.S. President Donald Trump said the unrest stems from large-scale Muslim immigration.
"What's going on in France is Mass Migration out of control," Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social on the 6th. "The Student 'Protests' are not about Schools, it's about Islam taking over a once great Country."
Agence France-Presse said Trump was linking the French student protests to immigration in an effort to rally the global right ahead of the U.S. midterm elections. Trump, who has pursued anti-immigration policies at home, has repeatedly criticized European countries including France, Britain, Germany and Spain for what he describes as indiscriminate admission of migrants from the Middle East and Africa. In July, he said of a surge of migrants into Spain's Ceuta enclave that hundreds of thousands of people had invaded a country.
The nationwide protests in France began after teachers at a high school in Creteil, on the outskirts of Paris, went on strike on Sept. 17. Since Sept. 28, demonstrations by high school students angry over poor educational conditions have spread beyond Paris to the rest of the country. Up to 500 schools have closed fully or partially, and 24 have been burned or looted. More than 5,000 people have been detained during the protests, 87% of them minors. Local media have reported that the unrest is driven by student complaints over chronic teacher shortages, overcrowded classrooms and aging school facilities.
