French President Emmanuel Macron said foreign leaders were exploiting the riots that spread across France for electoral gain. He made the comment during a visit to the Middle East, referring to leaders who were "in campaign mode" and speaking about the violence that erupted on the fringe of cost-of-living protests. Macron did not name specific individuals, but his remarks were understood to target Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose country is holding parliamentary elections next week, and former U.S. President Donald Trump, whose mid-term elections are scheduled for next month. He suggested these leaders had been influenced by fabricated videos generated by artificial intelligence that circulated online.

Nearly 150 people have been jailed and more than 800 brought before the courts since the riots that affected Paris, Lyon, Marseille and Nice. Video footage showed masked rioters clashing with police, property damage and looting, which was widely shared on social media. The French government acknowledged that police had temporarily lost control during the unrest, which followed weeks of student protests over high school conditions. Macron later pledged a firm response to what he described as agitators linked to ultra-left fringe groups.

In his remarks in Doha, Macron said there was no visible foreign interference in the events themselves, but that information about them had been manipulated. He cited examples of false claims, including allegations that France had been "invaded by hordes of migrants and Islamists," which he described as completely untrue.

Netanyahu referenced Macron in an interview with Israel’s i24 channel, stating that France, home to the largest Muslim minority in Western Europe, had experienced an "invasion of extremist Islam." He said he had warned Macron after the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, that failure to eliminate certain groups in Israel could lead to their presence in Paris.

Trump also weighed in, blaming the riots on immigration and suggesting that leaders should "close your borders and take control" before it is too late. His comments were directed at Macron and echoed broader concerns about migration and cultural change in Europe.

A report by the Financial Times indicated that European Union regulators are reviewing possible foreign online interference and disinformation campaigns linked to the unrest. Unnamed security officials suggested that pro-Russian and far-right social media accounts associated with previous disinformation efforts had amplified violent videos to deepen chaos. Iran and Algeria are among the countries speculated to be involved in the messaging, according to the report.

David Colon, a researcher at Sciences Po specializing in disinformation, noted that pro-Kremlin influencers tied to the Russian operation Storm-1516 had amplified the events and spread false narratives. France has been a prominent supporter of Ukraine in its conflict with Russia, while its relations with Algeria are shaped by historical tensions from the colonial war. Relations with Iran have grown strained due to regional conflicts involving the United States and Israel.

BBC Verify examined over 15 examples of fabricated news videos traced to a Russian disinformation network known as Matryoshka. These videos mimicked the branding of legitimate French outlets such as Le Monde, Euronews and France 24. While the reach of these videos appeared limited, experts said their intent to amplify unrest aligned with known Russian tactics.

Separately, BBC Verify traced a widely shared AI-generated image that depicted an elderly couple being robbed and left in their underwear in Paris. The image, created using ChatGPT without reference material, was published on October 17 by Sabrina Hania, director of Infos-Israel.News. It was initially labeled as AI-generated on social platforms but later circulated without such disclaimers, accumulating over six million views on X. Hania expressed regret that the image had been taken out of context and used to mislead, attributing the spread to those who shared it without identifying its synthetic origin. French prosecutors have found no evidence supporting the incident depicted in the image.

The events have sparked debate over the role of foreign actors in shaping narratives around domestic unrest, as well as the growing use of artificial intelligence in generating misleading content online.