France responds to ICE meme about riots with savage dig on gun control

The French foreign ministry hit back at criticism from the United States over the riots sweeping France on Thursday, days after US president Donald Trump drove controversy by claiming without evidence that migrants were fuelling the riots.

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had shared a video of masked men standing in front of a large fire during the recent demonstrations in France, writing: “Every day we are fighting to prevent American streets from looking like this.”

The inflammatory post was shared by French Response, a page managed by the French ministry of foreign affairs, which clapped back with statistics on US firearm deaths, adding: “Every day we are fighting to prevent French stats from looking like this.”

The figures comparing deaths per 100,000 people among G7 countries showed the US out in front with 5.9, ahead of Canada with 0.8, France with 0.3 and the UK with 0.1. French Response did not provide a source for the data.

More than 44,000 people died from gun-related injuries in the US in 2024, including (but not limited to) gun homicides and suicides, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

President Trump sparked anger in Europe over the weekend when he joined with the Kremlin in blaming the ongoing riots in France on “mass immigration”.

In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, he claimed that people “from an entirely different world” had “shattered that once great country” of France, urging: “Close your Borders and take control, before it is too late!”

And on Monday, the president claimed without evidence that France was being “conquered, looted and burned to the ground by migrants, jihadists and communists who hate Christianity” and “the Western civilisation itself”.

Vice President JD Vance echoed the messaging on social media, attributing the unrest to “third world” immigration and failure to assimilate, while warning American voters of a similar outcome should they support Democrats in the November midterms.

French president Emmanuel Macron this week condemned comments on the protests he said were “as unacceptable as they are stupid”, attributed to “many people including foreign leaders”.

Asked by a reporter if he was referring to Trump, the outgoing premier replied: “Among others.”

Macron and Trump once enjoyed a good relationship, but Trump regularly mocks the French president in his public speeches.

“The fact is, all the people who are speaking ill of our country right now are people who don’t love our country,” Macron said. “So those people really bother me.”

France has been hit by some of the worst urban tumult in years since protests broke out last month over student frustrations with classroom conditions and teacher shortages.

The demonstrations have since gathered national momentum, with many hundreds of thousands of people protesting cost of living concerns and declining public services.

France’s main student union, UNEF, has called for further rallies on Saturday, while the Yellow Vest group, which emerged as a potent anti-establishment movement in 2018, has filed plans for a march through central Paris the same day.