National Rally leader Jordan Bardella has lamented that France descended into what appeared to be “civil war”-like conditions following this weekend’s Champions League Final and said that the only way to fully restore order will be to regain control of immigration.
In the wake of Qatar-owned Paris Saint-Germain winning its second consecutive championship on Saturday in a dramatic shoot-out against London’s Arsenal FC, pandemonium erupted across France, with riots and looting breaking out in dozens of cities and towns.
According to Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, some 890 people were arrested between Saturday and Sunday, an increase of 45 per cent over last year. The minister also revealed that 178 police officers had been injured during the mayhem. Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau said that multiple officers had been hit with what she described as “bombe agricole” — crude or home-made bombs — which left them with “terrible” injuries.
Appearing on broadcaster BFMTV on Monday morning, National Rally leader and potential presidential candidate Jordan Bardella said that he was “horrified” by the outburst of violence from the hordes of youths in Paris and other cities over the weekend.
“We saw scenes of near civil war in the heart of Paris, shops looted and vandalised, police officers attacked,” He said. “We witnessed an outpouring of violence to which we are becoming accustomed and which is only getting worse.”
“France has become a country where life and celebration are now totally impossible. There is no longer a single event related to football, a single sporting event, a single popular village festival without it systematically degenerating,” Bardella added.
The populist MEP urged the French public to “wake up” to the dangers facing them, warning that the mobs seen on the streets will soon “break down the doors of buildings and enter your apartments” if the government fails to regain control of immigration.
“There is obviously a link to our inability for thirty years to control immigration,” Bardella said, while noting that the unrest was frequently tied to “certain football clubs” which have a multicultural fan-base rather than other sporting events such as rugby or tennis, both of which recently held tournaments in France without any major issue.
Bardella was not alone in linking the violence to mass migration, with former Interior Minister and current presidential candidate Bruno Retailleau, who said that the riots were a result of immigration having eroded “respect for the law and the weakening of the republican pact.”
Others further afield also shared similar sentiments, with U.S. Senator Mike Lee saying that “mass deportations are in order” in response to footage of the Paris riots over the weekend.
Dutch populist leader Geert Wilders remarked, “If you import Africa, you become Africa.” The leader of Germany’s AfD party, Alice Weidel, simply stated: “Remigration”.
The French public also appears to be increasingly pessimistic about the state of their country, with a poll conducted before the violence over the weekend finding that over seven in ten believe that crime is “out of control” and that France risks becoming like Mexico, in which criminal gangs operate free from fear of the state.
Yet the government does not appear to share the same view, with Interior Minister Nuñez claiming on Monday that despite the widespread violence, looting, and rioting, the large number of arrests demonstrated that the response was “done well”.
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