Middle East Forum Islamist Watch senior researcher Mahyar Entezari argues that France’s riots are driven less by immigration or Islamism than by a radical far-left ideology rooted in postcolonial thought. Entezari notes that La France Insoumise, labor unions, communists and revolutionary groups dominate the unrest, citing research by Fox News Digital’s Asra Nomani tracking the groups involved.
Entezari says Islamist influence in France is real but limited, citing a 2025 French Interior Ministry study reported by Le Monde that found about 200 of the country’s 2,800 mosques, roughly 7%, influenced by a Muslim Brotherhood network. He warns that similar far-left calls to dismantle institutions exist in the United States, pointing to the 2020 BLM riots as evidence that such unrest could happen again.
HOST: And we’re diving right into it. We’re going to France, where Paris is burning, and we’ve all seen probably the video. I have some B-roll, in a little bit we’ll play. But I was, you know, a week ago, when I first started seeing this, or maybe more than a week ago, I was just struggling to understand what is going on. I mean, France is no stranger, the country, to unrest and the people revolting. They made ample use of the guillotine decades ago. but they don’t wanna eat cake no more. I don’t, I don’t know. I guess it is this ideological problem, Islamigration riots. our next guest, Maher Intizari. I hope I’m somewhere close on pronouncing that.
ENTEZARI: Yes.
HOST: Great to have you join us. he’s a Middle Eastern Forum senior researcher, Islamic watch. he’s a perfect person to try to make sense of what’s going on now in France, what we’re seeing. Maher, e- so this is... When I first saw it, I thought, you know, France is obviously running a national deficit as far as money. They’ve made cuts-
ENTEZARI: Mm
HOST: ... to universities and colleges. And I thought it was just, you know, kids of the age, 20-somethings, you know, rebelling. French kids. But that seems to be very little o- of their involvement. What I’m seeing is, immigration issues, Islamists. I’m seeing, you know, religious clerics, Islamists from Iran that had predicted years ago Paris would burn in 2026 and fall to Islam. It’s just, is that what is driving this? It’s not a national deficit, it’s not unrest with French teenagers or 20-somethings, it’s immigration? What’s going on over there?
ENTEZARI: Well, hello, first of all, thank you for having me. And, it’s definitely a very complex situation. I think, one shouldn’t necessarily ignore immigration, but there’s far more going on. And the economic situation is definitely important. I think it fans the flames of unrest and strife. and, there are reportedly, at least there’s reportedly at least one Islamist group that’s involved. but I think to focus on, the Muslim population or Islamism or political Islam, is to overlook a major factor in what’s going on, which is radical far-left ideology. a lot of, a lot of observers in France and different political parties, esp- even center, left parties and far left parties, as The Federalist has reported recently, are now also coming out against the far left party, La France Insoumise, LFI, that is, promoting these protests. and they’re, but they’re not the only one. One, there’s a, you know, Asra Nomani for, from Fox News Digital. She has, done a lot of research. She has done the most in-depth research that I’ve seen on tracking the groups that are involved. And, on Monday she had tracked 54 groups, and just a couple of days ago it’s gone up to 101 groups in multiple countries now. And, but only about 33%, one third, are student-led. The rest are adult-led. There are, some labor unions. And, as Macron has, said too, he wants to allow, maybe find other paths for the labor unions to protest. They seem to be the least, less noxious ones. But there are also, communists, radical leftists, revolutionaries that are involved. And I think this, the ideology that is very prevalent in the far left is an ideology that, it lends itself to Islamism. I think it’s rooted in ideas like postcolonialism. and, you know, France itself has been a breeding ground for a lot of far left ideologies, like postcolonial thought by thinkers like Frantz Fanon and Jean-Paul Sartre, Michel Fico. These were, Michel Fico, Michel Foucault, and Paul, Jean-Paul Sartre were French intellectuals, just to give you a sense of things, who celebrated Ayatollah Khomeini coming to Iran. and they have this thing, they have this negative view towards the West. And, so these far left, far left activists who view the West as something to be torn down, I think we’re seeing the, we’re seeing those ideas being put into action now. And they’re just very, they’re very friendly towards, radical Islamists who also have the same goal. But that’s, though, based on Asra Nomani’s, that should be mentioned, Asra Nomani’s reporting, she’s, she identified one group, one student-led group that has reportedly ties to, the Muslim Brotherhood. but so it’s, it’s, it seems to be that Islamists are s- are a very small part of this.
HOST: Yeah. We’re, we have special guest on, Maher Intizari. We’re talking about the unrest in France, these riots, what is driving that. so i- the Islam population, the Islam influence, we’ll just call it Islam, I don’t know that, you know, the, what kind of immi- immigration policy is in France. Very lax that has allowed a great population... When I was in Paris- Probably s- seven years ago. I noticed that, but I wondered to what degree this, the Muslim population, the Islam population is integrating. I don’t think they are. France’s, President Macron, himself spoke of separatism. They’re there living in France, but I don’t know if they’re really, you know, they’re, they’re li- they still have, their own beliefs. And, a- and what they’re doing is influencing, impressionable, far left thinking, liberal thinking, French kids. they’re, they’re-
ENTEZARI: Mm
HOST: ... getting sucked into this, including the viral m- video, the meme of the shopkeeper who’s saying, “Hey, what are you, what are you doing here?” “I’m with you,” she says, and meanwhile is the Islam, you know, who- whoever they are saying, “Nah, you’re n- we’re, we’re not with anyone. We’re just here to steal, you know, Louis Vuitton bags.” What the...?
ENTEZARI: Well, I think it’s, it is important to distinguish between, Islamists and just regular Muslims. I know-
HOST: Yeah
ENTEZARI: ... personally some, you know, Muslims in France that have integrated. I know, like a Muslim police officer in France. So there are,.. There’s d- different, definitely a spectrum. And, Le Monde ha- reported in 2025 that the French Interior Ministry did a study on Islamism in France, and they found that, of the 2,800, mosques in France, only about 200 or about 7% were influenced by a network of the Muslim Brotherhood in France. So the influence is there. It seems, it’s, it doesn’t-
HOST: Okay
ENTEZARI: ... represent the entire Muslim population if we th- think about 7% of the mosques. However, you know, I, you know, there are, you know, there are radical leftist, ideologues who’ve, who have spread ideas that like, you know, to have a revolution you only need like something like 8%. You know, you don’t need the whole population. This is, this is the far left, rhetoric that I’ve come across before. And so, you know, to 7% is small, but you know, it can have an effect if there are, if there’s, such a small portion of the population involved. But it’s also important to note that I think not all of the, you know, the youth might have fully formed political ideologies that are, you know, they, maybe they’re still developing their political ideologies. And also, they’re, the protests are being led largely by adult, organizations. And I think that it’s, it’s, just to underscore again that the far left radical ideology is important, it, ‘cause it gives a, it gives ground for other anti-Western ideas to fester. I mean, if we think about how would one integrate, immigrant populations? I’m, and I myself am an immigrant to the United States. My integration happened through the school system, l- learning to become, you know, respectful of America, love America, and all of th- those sorts of things that I think are important for immigrants to be able to assimilate. but if you have a school system that’s, you know, plagued by ideologies that, and a university system too that is v- viewing the West as something negative and not to want to integrate into, then that’s not gonna be a good recipe for immigrant populations who are coming in and being also re- having these ideas reinforced through, the French population perhaps.
HOST: Muir, let me, let me ask you, could France have done anything differently, with their immigration policy to avoid this? What... Are they their own worst problem?
ENTEZARI: Well, I think, this is, this, these recent events, underscore the importance of, a vetting process perhaps to see, you know, to know who is coming into the country. and I think they definitely have, as we’ve seen obviously, failed at integration. there’s the economic factors too. And it’s also, you know, there are also, it’s, it’s not 100% the immigrant population. The immigrant population of France is a large, chunk of the population. But there’s also a lot of, you know, from the videos I’ve seen, there’s just a lot of what you, what we would think, you know, how to, how to phrase this, the, indigenous French people. There’s a lot that we see there too that are also involved.
HOST: Yes. i- it’s just, and again, sometimes we’re, in this discussion, we’re painting with a broad brush on-
ENTEZARI: Mm-hmm
HOST: ... who we’re identifying as picking up rocks and throwing them at police. But, -
ENTEZARI: Yeah
HOST: ... w- whatever, m- much of it is driven by some kind of radicalization. This is,.. A- and you mentioned, well, you’re, there’s no organized endgame. What... It’s just unrest. Is it the haves and have nots? I- Because there’s so many different factions of, you know, I- Islam, Muslim. You mentioned like 100 different groups. you know, they’re, they’re not of one mindset. They’re n- they don’t have an endgame in play.
ENTEZARI: Mm.
HOST: They don’t... what’s the endgame? Take over France? I mean, it’s just, I don’t know, it’s just angst boiling over. What’s...?
ENTEZARI: I think it is, it is hard to see an endgame when, through, in violence, because what are they hoping to accomplish by burning things down? if definitely if their, if, like, th- their economy is lagging, they have economic issues, to certainly to cause all this destruction is not going to make things any better, so it’s, it’s counterproductive. — There are, you know, advocacy groups and labor unions who, want to fight for more entitlements. You know, France also has this long-standing tradition of like a social Annette, sort of like a socialist system.
HOST: Yeah.
ENTEZARI: They want more aid from the government, but, the... When we speak, we consider again the revolutionary leftists that are also involved. well, revo- when you have revolution as your goal, it’s just that, the actions you take are just to tear down the system. And I think there... We see that, like, w- when we saw the city hall, town hall of Limoges burn down, that sent a signal that, you know-
HOST: Yeah
ENTEZARI: ... the mayor of Limoges, said that this is an attack on the Republic. And, at the... When, you know, when they mean rev- when they say revolution, they mean revolution. It’s not just like a, just a word they’re throwing around. They’re trying to throw, overthrow the system. And it’s not just, it’s not... I think it, one, again, one, it’s to focus on, the Muslim population ignores the radical leftists that are in France, the revolutionaries and communists too.
HOST: Hmm. Well, I guess, the million-dollar question, and break out-
ENTEZARI: Hmm
HOST: ... your crystal ball. This is all happening in Europe and France. That’s far away. What does the average person in Des Moines, Iowa care about all this? It’s the implications that is this a model for the United States? also a country running a deficit now, I don’t know, 40 trillion or more. also a country that’s, has some, you know, immigration issues, got a sig- significant, Muslim, Islam influence, especially Michigan. I, you know, i- is there a model here, a lesson to be learned from the United States?
ENTEZARI: I think it’s important to take, seriously, rhetoric that we come across like from, far left groups in the United States that are saying that they want to tear things down. They want to, abolish institutions like the Senate. We hear the Democrat-
HOST: Yeah
ENTEZARI: ... Democratic Socialists of America say that. I think it’s important to take that seriously, not to assume that that just can’t happen here. I mean, we saw something that’s looks at least very similar with the BLM riots in 2020. so it’s, things like this ha- have happened in the United States before. They could happen again.
HOST: You know, I think the demise of civilization is not gonna be some superpower with a nuclear weapon, some country. It’s gonna be undefinable groups, whether it’s, you know, Yemen Houthis or Antifa or, you know, Muslim uprisings in Paris and watching it burn. I... How do you fight that? How do you even put a finger on and identify what is driving the unrest? And why-
ENTEZARI: Hmm. I think, yeah, to know exactly what groups are, like what’s, involved and in what capacity, because we don’t... And after No Money’s reporting has given us a great insight into how many organizations there are, what organizations. and we also don’t know to what extent organizations themselves are driving this and to what extent they’re just individuals, like groups of, groups of people and just mob mentalities. And a mob, mobs don’t oftentimes need organization. They’re, they’re quite the antithesis to organization. and, I think that o- one should also just to remember that there are still, millions of Muslims, in the West, that come to the West to want to integrate and live peacefully. That, there... Just like there are millions of, people who are, say, on the political left who also don’t support this kind of thing.
HOST: Yeah. Well, I mean, when you see videos like this, news like this, it makes it tough for, you know, a regular M- a Islam, a regular Muslim, practicing Muslim to, not be persecuted for who he or she is. Ah, it’s just craziness what’s going on in France. Maybe a lesson, President Trump had, I don’t know what. He made a com- “Paris is gonna be a Muslim city very soon,” says President Trump about, couple of days ago. Yeah, it’s concerning. I can’t get my head around it and understand what’s happening. But guys like this, that’s what they do. And we’re so lucky to have you on to give us some insight. Maher Yazdi, thank you for-
ENTEZARI: My pleasure
HOST: ... joining us. Yes.
ENTEZARI: My pleasure. Thank you very much.
HOST: Have a great day.
ENTEZARI: You too
