Three-quarters of a sample of suspects brought before French courts following last month’s mass riots bore Arabic–Muslim or African-origin first names, according to an analysis by leading pollster Jérôme Fourquet.
The finding points to mounting indications of significant immigrant-background involvement in the looting and violence that, with the help of the far left, turned France’s protests over education and living costs into weeks of urban chaos.
Fourquet, director of the opinion department at polling institute Ifop, examined national and local newspaper accounts of expedited court hearings following the 17 October riots. Of the 70 cases in which sufficient biographical information was available, 75 per cent had first names he classified as Arabic–Muslim or African in origin. He described the result as showing ‘very strong overrepresentation’.
Similar concerns had already emerged in neighbouring Italy and Germany. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said around half of the 330 people stopped or arrested during October’s riots were of immigrant background. In Frankfurt, Hesse Interior Minister Roman Poseck described the groups involved in looting on 31 October as predominantly migrant in character.
The French findings have also exposed a growing split within the political establishment. Former prime minister and 2027 presidential contender Édouard Philippe said on 1 November that footage of the pillaging showed significant numbers of young French citizens of immigrant background. Far-left presidential candidate and one of the main political forces behind the riots, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, condemned his remarks as racist, while Republican leader Bruno Retailleau cited Fourquet’s research in support.
National Rally presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, meanwhile, blamed the violence on an alliance between far-left agitators and delinquent groups from the suburbs, accusing LFI and Antifa militants of fuelling the unrest. She explicitly linked the riots to decades of ‘uncontrolled immigration’, judicial leniency and political failures under successive French governments, accusing President Emmanuel Macron of losing control of the country.
Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin said this week that 70 per cent of those convicted were French nationals. That does not, however, contradict Fourquet’s findings, as many of the looters and vandals were considered to be second- or third-generation immigrants.