Europe’s far right exploits protest violence to push anti-immigration agenda

European far-right leaders are using last weekend's protest violence in European cities to push authoritarian anti-immigration agendas, framing the unrest as a consequence of failed liberal governance and open-border policies ahead of key elections in Spain, France, and Italy. In France, National Rally leaders Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella blamed government incompetence for riots in Paris, Marseille, and Lyon, while Germany's AfD warned of spillover and linked the violence to immigration. Far-right parties in Portugal, Spain, Belgium, and Italy have similarly connected the unrest to migration or used it to justify stricter law-and-order measures. Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni passed emergency decrees targeting rioters, while anti-immigration figures like Éric Zemmour and US leaders Donald Trump and JD Vance framed the violence as evidence of a civilizational conflict fueled by multiculturalism and non-EU immigration.