By Paul Vallas

October 30, 2026

France is showing the rest of the world the epic failure of socialism and open borders.

What is happening in France didn’t come out of nowhere. It didn’t “happen yesterday.” It’s the outcome of fifty years of political decisions, made by the left, the far left, as well as the right, who have taken turns in power. Few countries have spent so much money demonstrating at such scale how quickly a rich and capable nation can exhaust itself when comfort replaces responsibility.

France has spent decades turning every political problem into another excuse for more state intervention, more taxation, more spending, more regulation and more dependency, while opening its door wide to a flood of immigrants. The result is a country that spends enormous sums, taxes heavily, runs chronic deficits while delivering deteriorating public services, industrial decline and permanent political paralysis.

Few countries spend so much while leaving such serious questions about what their citizens receive in return. France’s national statistical agency reported that public spending reached 57.3% of gross domestic product in 2025. The budget deficit was 5.1% of GDP, and public debt stood at 115.7%.¹ Those are not partisan talking points. They are clear measures of a country that is spending beyond its means.

At the same time, successive governments treated mass immigration as if integration and assimilation would happen automatically. Instead of controlling its borders, carefully screening new arrivals, demanding assimilation, enforcing common standards and protecting social cohesion, they repeatedly preferred denial, euphemism and administrative improvisation. The costs then appeared in housing, schools, policing, welfare, public order and increasingly fragmented communities.

The two systems reinforce each other negatively. A gigantic welfare state makes uncontrolled immigration more expensive; social fragmentation makes reform harder; weak growth makes redistribution less sustainable; higher taxes damage competitiveness.

Declining competitiveness, rising living costs, deteriorating schools and degraded public services produce demands for more subsidies and state protections that the state cannot possibly meet, increasing public anger.

These conditions are exploited by the left and by radical Islamists whose preference is for domination, not assimilation, as integration has too often failed despite France’s efforts at government-managed integration. France’s naive immigration model is built on Republican Universalism—color-blind citizenship that assumes arrivals will share civic values regardless of their origins or religion, welcoming them into a political community of equals.

France has its “Law Reinforcing Respect for the Principles of the Republic” to combat Islamist separatism,² and it has poured capital into apprenticeships, with the number of apprentices more than doubling to over one million by December 2023.³ But the Islamists do not want assimilation; they seek domination. A French government intelligence report warned of the growing presence of the Muslim Brotherhood and its threat to French national unity.⁴ It described its practice of “entryism”—infiltrating public institutions, schools, and local sports and cultural clubs to gradually shift social rules from the bottom up.

The report identified 139 places of worship affiliated with the movement across the departments (states), and another 68 considered close to it, together drawing an estimated 91,000 worshippers on Fridays.⁵ Recent French parliamentary investigations and public reports have scrutinized ties between certain far-left politicians—specifically within Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise—and organizations or activists accused of Islamist entryism or pro-Palestinian mobilization targeting the Muslim electorate.⁶

Critics use the contested term “Islamo-leftism” to describe the growing tactical alliance between elements of the radical left (such as La France Insoumise) and Islamist movements or networks. The phrase was introduced into French political and academic discourse by political scientist Pierre-André Taguieff in the early 2000s to describe how some anti-globalist or far-left groups converged with radical Islamist positions around anti-Zionism and pro-Palestinian advocacy.⁷

Analysts and critics sometimes use the label “red–green–brown alliance” to describe an intersection where leftists (red), Islamists (green), and far-right actors (brown) share anti-establishment, anti-Western, or anti-status-quo sentiments.⁸

Critics, conservative politicians, and figures in the French government argue that parts of the radical left abandon secularism (laïcité) and republican values by accommodating or normalizing political Islam to win suburban and minority votes. Opponents view the convergence as a dangerous tactical miscalculation where secular progressives provide an intellectual vocabulary for reactionary or coercive religious movements. While the two would seem incompatible on the surface, in reality, one produces the fractures, the other exploits them.

Yes, the anger over cost of living and living conditions is real. The school system has deteriorated.⁹ Public services have crumbled. Integration has too often failed, under the watchful eyes of every government. But the vandals, the looters, and the arsonists aren’t the product of a random weekend mishap.¹⁰ They’re the product of a system that has tolerated, year after year, the rule of law no longer applying the same way everywhere while opening its borders to an invasion of individuals unwilling to assimilate.

It’s not the exclusive fault of one side. It’s the shared responsibility of those who have governed France since the 1970s. The right, once in power, has often talked tough and acted little, out of fear of unpopularity or electoral calculations. No one has truly wanted to shoulder the political cost of restoring order and putting an end to the abdications. For decades, they allowed a culture of leniency to take root when it comes to delinquency, trafficking, violence, and attacks on property and people.

French leaders have preferred speeches, sociological excuses, and abdications of authority over applying the law firmly and consistently. Result: a portion of the population has internalized that you can smash, steal, and burn without any real consequences. For two decades, France’s leaders have governed hand in hand with Brussels globalism. Macron, Ursula von der Leyen, the Commission—the same reflexes, the same contempt for nations while letting immigration manage itself.

They let life become increasingly unaffordable. And every time someone dared say it, they labeled them racist, fascist, far-right. This system manufactured chaos. And today, it’s the far left and its radical Islamic allies who are reaping the political benefits. Globalist centrism created the void. The far left rushed into it, opening the door to unrestricted immigration—disproportionately Muslim—whose culture rejects assimilation and eagerly aligns with the far left in delegitimizing and demoting Western institutions and their Judeo-Christian origins.

The unrest in France is spilling across borders, inspiring similar demonstrations in Belgium and parallel protests in Portugal and Italy.¹¹ In the internet and social media age, civil unrest does not stop at national borders. Riots can act as a psychological catalyst across Western democracies, where citizens face identical grievances regarding inflation, economic inequality, and distrust of political elites—fueled by the radical left and its alliance with radical Islam and the growing number of easily exploitable, unassimilated migrants and their children.

While this alliance presents itself as a partnership for liberation, the bond between the far left and radical Islam is forged not in shared ideals but in shared hatred—of Western civilization, capitalism, and perceived colonialism. For the far left, the West represents systemic oppression; for Islamists, it symbolizes moral decay and an obstacle to religious domination. Together, they occupy the Trojan Horse that advances under the banner of justice, using moral language to disguise their intent to dismantle the foundations of democracy and replace them with coercive, illiberal alternatives.

The warning from France is not that every welfare program is socialism, every immigrant rejects integration, or every protest threatens civilization. It’s that no country can indefinitely promise benefits without financing them, provide open borders and expect natural assimilation, demand social cohesion without building it, and defend the rule of law without applying it consistently.

France is the canary in the coal mine. The question is whether the rest of the West will heed the warning.

Footnotes

1. INSEE, “General Government Accounts in 2025,” Insee Première, no. 2106, May 2026, https://www.insee.fr/en/statistiques/9008766. Revised annual figures: public spending 57.3% of GDP, deficit 5.1% of GDP (down from 5.8% in 2024), public debt 115.7% of GDP.
2. Law no. 2021-1109 of August 24, 2021 “confortant le respect des principes de la République” (reinforcing respect for the principles of the Republic), aimed at combating separatism and radical Islam. Vie-publique.fr, https://www.vie-publique.fr/loi/277621-loi-separatisme-respect-des-principes-de-la-republique-24-aout-2021.
3. INSEE, “Depuis 2018, l’apprentissage s’ouvre massivement aux formations de l’enseignement supérieur,” https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/8305566. The number of apprentices more than doubled in five years, from 429,900 in 2017 to 1,021,500 in December 2023, after the 2018 reform and exceptional employer aid.
4. “Les Frères musulmans et islamisme politique en France,” the 73-page government-commissioned intelligence report presented to the Interior Minister in May 2025. Public Sénat, “Frères musulmans : ce que révèle le rapport commandé par l’exécutif,” May 20, 2025, https://www.publicsenat.fr/actualites/politique/freres-musulmans-ce-que-revele-le-rapport-commande-par-lexecutif; Le Monde, “Muslim Brotherhood’s influence in France: What the controversial report reveals,” May 22, 2025, https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2025/05/22/muslim-brotherhood-s-influence-in-france-what-the-controversial-report-reveals_6741529_7.html.
5. La Croix, “Frères musulmans : un rapport met en garde contre une ‘menace pour la cohésion nationale’,” May 20, 2025, https://www.la-croix.com/religion/freres-musulmans-un-rapport-met-en-garde-contre-une-menace-pour-la-cohesion-nationale-20250520. The report cautions that a worshipper attending a mosque of the movement is “by no means necessarily a member,” and estimates only 400 to 1,000 individuals in France as formal members of the Muslim Brotherhood (Le Monde, May 22, 2025).
6. Assemblée nationale, Report no. 2235 of the commission of inquiry on links between political movements and networks propagating Islamist ideology, deposited December 10, 2025, https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dyn/17/rapports/cepolisl/l17b2235_rapport-enquete. The report documented “convergences and displayed proximities” between certain officials—principally in La France Insoumise—and individuals promoting Islamist ideology, while finding no “structured, demonstrable links” between the parties and Islamist movements as such. See also franceinfo’s summary of the contested conclusions, https://www.franceinfo.fr/politique/parlement-francais/assemblee-nationale/liens-entre-partis-politiques-et-islamisme-ce-qu-il-faut-retenir-des-conclusions-contestees-de-la-commission-d-enquete_7687759.html.
7. Pierre-André Taguieff, interview, Le Point, November 21, 2020, https://www.lepoint.fr/debats/pierre-andre-taguieff-certains-islamo-gauchistes-sont-islamismophiles-21-11-2020-2402060_2.php. Taguieff, a director of research at the CNRS, coined “islamo-gauchisme” in the early 2000s (in La Nouvelle Judéophobie, 2002). The CNRS has stated that the term is a political slogan that “does not correspond to any scientific reality”: CNRS communiqué, February 17, 2021, https://www.cnrs.fr/fr/presse/l-islamogauchisme-nest-pas-une-realite-scientifique.
8. The term “red–green–brown alliance” (alliance rouge–verte–brune) originated in France in the early 2000s and refers to an alleged convergence of leftists (red), Islamists (green) and the far right (brown); it was coined by the essayist Alexandre del Valle in Le Figaro in April 2002. Wikipedia, “Red–green–brown alliance,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-green-brown_alliance.
9. OECD, PISA 2022 Results: Country Note — France, https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/pisa-2022-results-volume-i-and-ii-country-notes_ed6fbcc5-en/france_8008535b-en.html. France’s results were down compared to 2018 in mathematics and reading, and among the lowest ever measured; the decline in mathematics was described as unprecedented in the country’s PISA record.
10. On October 17, 2026, roughly 550,000 people marched nationwide against rising living costs and deteriorating public services (organizers put turnout near 800,000); about 2,400 people were arrested, nearly 1,000 officers were injured, and rioters torched the historic Limoges city hall. Associated Press, “How France’s worst rioting in years erupted,” October 20, 2026, https://apnews.com/article/france-protests-riots-looting-ca52b503a4ac8b2a489109f7de852847; Reuters, “France faces aftermath of worst unrest in years,” October 18, 2026, https://www.reuters.com/5f374b32b07b/world/europe/france-faces-aftermath-worst-unrest-years-2026-10-18/.
11. Reuters, October 17, 2026, https://www.reuters.com/5f374b32b07b/world/students-trade-unions-yellow-vests-set-protest-across-france-2026-10-17/. Belgium, Portugal and Italy also faced smaller-scale protests the same day: several hundred mostly young people protested in Brussels “partly inspired by those in France,” some clashing with police; a cost-of-living march in Milan degenerated into disorder, with police clearing the cathedral square with tear gas.

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Paul Vallas formerly ran the public school systems in Chicago, Philadelphia and the Louisiana Recovery School District. He was a candidate for Mayor of Chicago.