More than 250,000 people have been protesting public education across France over what they say is underinvestment in high schools. Many schools have been forced to shut down as police have used tear gas to disperse demonstrators, and some 6,100 people have been arrested since the protests began late last month.
U.S. President Donald Trump directly attributes the mass student protests to "out of control mass migration" and Islam, echoing his long-standing criticism of European immigration policies ahead of the upcoming U.S. midterm elections.
"What's happening in France is nothing less than out of control mass migration," he recently posted on Truth Social. "This isn't about schools, this is about Islam wanting to take over a once great Country!"
"In this particular case, a number of the schools that have been shut down are in areas that are growing very fast demographically, and those tend to be Muslim-majority areas around the suburbs of Paris," notes Dr. Glen Duerr, chair of history and government and professor of international studies at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio.
"We're also seeing very left-wing candidates, almost communist candidates from France Unbowed," he adds. "It's a very, very left-wing political party in a very Left country."
American conservative media outlets, political analysts and international nationalist figures support this theory by arguing that the severe property destruction and appearance of geopolitical symbols indicate the movement has been co-opted by cultural and religious friction.
Domestically, however, French political entities across the spectrum, including the far right, have not linked the student movement to immigration or religion, aligning with local reporting and international observers who confirm the protests focus strictly on school infrastructure, class sizes and staffing shortages.
But Duerr is glad to see that conservative French politician Marine Le Pen (pictured above) of the National Rally Party is surging in the polls.
"While I would disagree with her in some areas, certainly she provides a much better alternative than many other of the candidates," he tells AFN. "In the lead-up to the 2027 presidential vote, she is leading in the polls, and certainly there are some very significant differences in terms of how she would tackle things, notably immigration, but also in terms of the economy."
The other French presidential candidates approach immigration through distinctly polarized platforms: the far Left focuses on expanding integration and asylum, the centrists propose strict economic quotas and work-based limits and the far-right pledges to abolish birthright citizenship and halt non-European entry entirely.
With immigration expected to remain a central issue in the 2027 election, Duerr believes Le Pen offers French voters a distinctly better path.
