Analysis: French riots provide closing argument for US midterms, European tech founder says 

Against a backdrop of riots in France, a French AI CEO said Democrat programs will eventually result in American decline if voters trust liberal promises to solve problems.

Protests that began as student demonstrations highlighting teacher shortages and school conditions have morphed into George Floyd-like nationwide riots, with more than 6,000 people arrested so far, reported the National Desk.

Brivael Le Pogam, who cofounded Argil, an AI-based video game company, said the current problems in France were created by politicians whose solutions seemed “compassionate, reasonable” but led to decline.

“In France we did everything your progressive politicians promise,” he warned. “Free healthcare, free college, generous welfare, strong unions, heavy regulation, high taxes on the rich, a state that takes care of everything.

“The promise was protection,” he added. “The result is stagnation.”

And riots.

Economic stagnation

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimated public spending in France at 57.4% of gross domestic product (GDP) for 2026. By comparison, the OECD estimates that U.S. public spending will be 37% of GDP this year.

France ranks in the middle for spending per pupil, according to the OECD. The country’s biggest problem is that 32% of education spending goes to pensions, reported Reuters.

“In the midst of a day of protest, France has learnt that a third of the budget allocated to the national education system does not actually go towards education,” economist Maxime Sbaihi said, according to Reuters.

In April 2024, the Economist warned that state spending in the West had “spiraled out of control.”

Bond markets are also sending a warning to the U.S., the U.K. and especially France about adding to government debt.

As a result, France’s GDP has been lagging that of the rest of the world, leaving the country caught in a debt spiral.

Choosing civil war

“This is no longer a student movement, it’s the beginning of urban riots and civil war,” said French presidential candidate Nicolas Dupont-Aignan.

A Fox Digital report found that many protesters come from adult protest movements or political parties, some of which have been connected to protests in the U.S.

“What we’re seeing here is the same Red-Green ecosystem that disrupts infrastructure choke holds in our country such as the Brooklyn Bridge, college campuses and congressional hearings,” Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital.

Gonzalez said U.S. billionaire Neville Roy Singham, who is being investigated for his extensive ties to China, is funding at least some of the French protest movement.

Heartlander News previously reported on Singham’s activities in the U.S. funding and feeding protest movements.

Historian Dominic Green wrote in the New York Post that France’s riots reflect a deeper cultural and political conflict between the French state and a growing, predominantly Muslim population of immigrant descent.

Many are French-born citizens, Green said, but poor assimilation has created a population increasingly at odds with traditional French society and its institutions.

The goal, he said, is to get rid of democracy in the West, including the U.S.

He noted that radical left-wing parties have cultivated Islamic voting blocs to build progressive political power, helping shape election outcomes in Britain, Sweden and Germany. The U.S. is also in play.

“It has reshaped the Democrats’ ground game in states such as New York and Michigan,” Green added.

French elections loom

That’s important context as France enters the final six months before its presidential election, scheduled for April 2027.

“Well, it’s definitely not about education,” Niles Gardiner, a foreign policy analyst and former aide to Margaret Thatcher, told the National Desk. “After all, these rioters are literally burning down schools. They’re attacking teachers. They are attacking other students.”

Protesters are also specifically targeting police, recycling the Antifa “ACAB” slogan (All Cops Are Bastards) and other anti-police rhetoric. [Caution: Photos contain graphic language.]

A leftist mayor from the same party as top progressive presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon said, “Violence, at a certain point, can be legitimate,” a statement that Mélenchon subsequently did not disavow, The New York Times reported.

The comments prompted French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, aligned with French President Emmanuel Macron’s pro-European Renaissance Party, to accuse Mélenchon’s France Unbowed Party of fostering violence.

“The reality is that you are ambiguous about violence,” Lecornu said, according to The New York Times, “because violence is part of your political plan to throw the country into chaos between now and the presidential election.”

Right readies campaign

The reaction from the right has been ferocious.

“Mélenchon knows history,” said Éric Zemmour, a presidential candidate from the Reconquest Party. “He knows that every revolution needs agitators, useful idiots and thugs to instill terror in the country until it finally gives in.”

Zemmour compared the rioters to Robespierre’s militants and Lenin’s Red Guard.

“These are no longer student protests,” said presidential front-runner Marine Le Pen. “These are riots organised by professionals and overseen by members of parliament from [France Unbowed].”

Le Pogam, the AI founder, warned that unsafe streets would become a permanent feature of the progressive agenda if progressives take power again in the U.S., even if their intentions are good.

“The worst part is that nobody in France voted for decline,” he said. “Every single step sounded generous, compassionate, reasonable. One more program. One more regulation. One more tax to fund it.”

Fifty years later, Le Pogam warned, the country can’t complete big projects on time or keep its streets safe.

“Before you vote, ask yourself one question: is the program you’re voting for making America more like America, or more like France?”

(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/Fox News)