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French far-right blames Paris riots on immigrants

Dan MacGuill
Dan MacGuill - [email protected]
French far-right blames Paris riots on immigrants
CRS riot police square off against rioting PSG fans on May 13th. Far right leader Marine LePen has blamed the disturbances on "a failure of immigration policy." Photo: Thomas Samson/AFP

Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front party, blamed this week's riots by PSG fans in Paris on "a failure of immigration policy," amid widespread claims from the extreme right that ethnic minorities were to blame for the trouble.

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Speaking on Wednesday Le Pen blamed Monday night’s looting and rampage in central Paris by a minority of so-called fans of the football club PSG on “a failure of immigration policy."  

“The rioters were obviously criminals of immigrant origins, who had come down from the estates to go on a raid,” she told Le Chaine Parliamentaire, the TV channel of France’s houses of parliament.

In the immediate aftermath of the riots, which cut short a celebration of Paris Saint-Germain’s first French football championship in 19 years, Le Pen released a statement calling participants “a flood of scumbags” and “barbarians.”

Le Pen is far from the only voice on France’s far right, however, to make a connection between ethnicity and the riots.

Her party’s vice-president, Bruno Gollnisch, on Tuesday caused controversy by deflecting blame from “ultras” – hardcore PSG supporters – and on to “ethnic gangs.

“The truth about the chaos at Trocadero:  It wasn’t ‘ultras’, as some in the media are saying, but ethnic gangs…”

Jean-Sebastien Vialatte, a deputy from the main centre-right opposition UMP caused outrage on Monday, after labelling rioters “the descendants of slaves”.

“Surely the rioters were the descendants of slaves. They have an excuse. Taubira will give them compensation!”, he tweeted, in reference to a recent call by Justice Minister Christiane Taubira that lands be given to the French descendants of the victims of the slave trade.

Vialatte’s tweet, which has since been deleted, was condemned by the governing Socialist party as “nauseating and racist.”

Much of the debate centred around race and ethnicity has seized on images of at least one rioter waving and wearing an Algerian flag.

Fabrice Robert, leader of the far-right splinter group, the Bloc Identitaire on Tuesday tweeted one of the images on Tuesday, asking: “What is this PSG ‘hooligan’ doing with an Algerian flag? Have we been lied to?”

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