How France’s far right is using a weekend of riots and chaos to seize power

Alexander SmithTue, October 20, 2026 at 3:28 PM UTC

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In the streets, rioters looted shops, torched cars and set fire to buildings. In the Élysée Palace, outgoing French President Emmanuel Macron confronted the damage to both his nation’s cities and his centrist political project, now in disarray just as it should have been reaching its culmination.

Amid the chaos, one clear winner sat behind a wide wooden desk beside a pristine French flag, casting herself as the leader-in-waiting of Europe’s third-largest economy.

Marine Le Pen was already topping the polls ahead of April’s presidential election, a vote that could mark the ultimate breakthrough for her far-right agenda. But during an eight-minute video address Sunday, she pointed to the violent unrest across France as living proof that mainstream politics had failed and that her proposed crackdowns on immigration and lawlessness were now essential.

“Our country is caught in a vise, even held hostage, between violence and powerlessness,” Le Pen said in a speech delivered ahead of Macron’s own address. She promised “restored authority and security” and that “anyone who causes damage must pay for it.”

French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen in Paris last year. (Julien De Rosa / AFP via Getty)

The crisis marks a potential inflection point for Le Pen, France and the far right in Europe as a whole.

For years Le Pen has tried to detoxify the image of her National Rally party away from one of racism, Islamophobia and antisemitism, as well as a coziness with the Kremlin. Now, as she appears on the brink of leading this nuclear-armed European powerhouse, the violence has offered Le Pen a golden opportunity to complete that image overhaul, according to French political insiders and analysts.

She was “trying to take advantage of the situation to change her persona and the way she embodies politics, no doubt to appear more presidential but also more authoritative,” said Gaspard Gantzer, an ex-top adviser to former President François Hollande, Macron’s predecessor.

“At a time when the country seems to be descending into chaos, this attitude is meant to project reassurance and authority,” he said.

The masked looters wreaking havoc in the French streets were a minority. The government estimated that 550,000 people joined Saturday’s demonstrations, most of them peacefully, after weeks of protests against poor school conditions and a punishingly high cost of living.

Yet the images of burning shops and helmet-clad riot police only sharpen the narrative that Europe is in turmoil.

Demonstrations in Paris on Saturday. (Carl Court / Getty)

“The current protests have been great for Le Pen,” agreed Rainbow Murray, a professor specializing in French politics at Queen Mary University of London. “Because her party promotes itself as a party of law and order, riots and chaos make anxious voters want to turn to a party that promises to keep the streets safe.”

Le Pen has softened her rhetoric on immigration and Islam, having once likened Muslims praying in the streets to the Nazi occupation. Last week, she told Muslims they had “absolutely no reason to worry” about her becoming president.

Yet, she still tied the weekend violence to “decades of uncontrolled immigration” — something not substantiated by officials or data.

The unrest in France was joined by similar scenes in Italy and other European countries, where economic protests descended into rioting.

Governments are struggling to balance their books as aging populations drive up welfare spending, wars in the Middle East and Ukraine push up energy bills, and threats from Moscow spur demands for higher defense spending.

Macron has come under attack not just from the far right but from mayors who say an inadequate police response left their cities unprotected. The president has blamed far-left activists for the violence, with leftist leaders in turn accusing him of inflaming the situation with heavy-handed policing. That’s left Le Pen able to capitalize.

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French President Emmanuel Macron in Brussels on Friday. (Nicolas Economou / NurPhoto via Getty)

Macron’s detractors were gifted an almost too on-the-nose scene when, as the country braced for unrest, the president and his wife, Brigitte, were seen enjoying the VIP section of a Celine Dion concert near Paris on Friday night. Images went viral, with the Macrons compared to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the king and queen guillotined during the French Revolution.

France’s tradition of confronting power in the streets stretches well beyond the revolution. Sweeping strikes in 1936 helped secure the 40-hour workweek. And amid mass student protests and strikes in 1968, President Charles de Gaulle briefly left France for a military base in West Germany. He returned and called parliamentary elections, which his allies won in a landslide on a law-and-order platform.

That message of authority is one Le Pen is attempting to deploy today.

“When voters see this kind of mayhem, they will ask themselves, ‘Who is the best person to stop that kind of rioting?’” said Jean-Yves Camus, a prominent expert on populism and the far right who co-directs the political extremism program at the Fondation Jean-Jaurès think tank in Paris. For many, he said, the answer is Le Pen.

A protest sign depicting Marine Le Pen as the devil at a demonstration by students in Toulouse on Oct. 8. (Pat Batard / Hans Lucas / AFP via Getty)

While the leader herself has tried to appeal to mainstream voters with toned-down immigration rhetoric, her party’s president, Jordan Bardella, has used blunter language, likely an attempt to throw red meat to their political base, Camus said.

“A large proportion of the looters are people with an immigrant background who do not feel French,” Bardella said Monday. French authorities have not substantiated claims linking the violence to immigration.

“You’re rubbing your hands over this situation,” one left-wing lawmaker told him.

Neither the National Rally nor the French government responded to requests for comment on the criticisms reported in this article.

Le Pen appears streets ahead of the competition.

In one first-round scenario tested by pollster Elabe last week, before the unrest, Le Pen had 32.5% support. Jostling behind were Macron’s former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, now a critic of his former boss, at 16.5%; the center-left Raphaël Glucksmann at 15.5%; and leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon at 15%.

Barred from seeking a third consecutive term, Macron is trying to shape events on the international stage while relatively powerless and deeply unpopular at home. His approval rating has fallen to 15%, according to an October survey by Ipsos BVA.

He swept into power as a centrist phenomenon in 2017, promising competent government and a bulwark against more extreme elements on the political left and right. He now risks ending his presidency in turmoil, with the very forces he vowed to subdue poised to supplant him.

Violent demonstrations in Lyon, southeast France on Saturday. (Laurent Cipriani / AP)

Macron has burned through seven prime ministers, tying the record under France’s current constitution. Four have taken office since the start of 2024. Without a parliamentary majority, he has struggled to muscle through the budget cuts he says are essential to rescuing France’s imperiled economy.

Some observers warn against assuming Le Pen’s path to power has been cleared in a blaze of upturned cars and smashed store windows.

“For sure, she is ahead with a wide margin” in the polls, Camus said, but he cautioned that Le Pen had performed worse than late polling suggested in both presidential runoffs against Macron.

“If the situation goes back to normal soon,” he added, “maybe in six months from now we will not remember all of this.”

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Source: “AOL General News”