FRANCE ON FIRE: Hundreds of thousands take to streets to demand education reform

And this is a very chaotic morning in France, tens of thousands taking to the streets in what appears to be the biggest day yet of student-led protests, the demonstrators blocking off high schools and fighting with police as they demand more funding for education. Thomas Corbett Dillon is a former advisor to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. And as you look at what's happening in France, like one of the things I said to my husband is that, again, he's British and you're British, so I mean, you're somewhat kin, that the students are saying this is because of education. I said, it's almost as if it's in spite of. How do you see it? Yes, look, I know we're spinning this as it is high school protests, and that is how it started. But this has totally been hijacked as per usual by the far left. And they've taken this. And look, we have to be real about this. This isn't little Pierre in Bordeaux that's out rioting. These areas are predominantly migrant areas. These are new French people. A lot of French people don't even live in these areas anymore. So it's a very different situation than what we're hearing in the in a lot of the media. The BBC are calling it, you know, high school protests. It's something very different. Here is a montage of some of these French students. This is from, let's say, couple one, let's listen to this. There's not enough teachers. The places in high schools are diminishing. They are not repairing the high schools like the conditions are really bad. Enough is enough. We can't just sit back and take it anymore. And that we truly want to demand certain essential things that are absolutely necessary in a high school. We just want more rights and equality, whether in Paris or in rural areas. We want everyone to have the same opportunities. OK. And that would last one, of course, in mass. Thomas, though, do they have a point? Has France underfunded education because they're funding all the other social programs? Of course. Look, France is unbelievably socialist, as we're seeing across Europe. They fund everything. All these people that arrive in their country, of course, get the free houses, the free credit cards, you know, everything is free for them. But then it comes down to the actual French people. They seem to be left behind a little bit. So they do have some points. But once again, these are inner city schools. Every country in the world has problems with inner city schools. This is not a problem in majority France. And what I think you're seeing here in the rest of France today, I would actually put money down. The Marine Le Pen has now just won the next French election because the majority of French people are totally sick of hearing this, of seeing this. They're beautiful cities being destroyed by these people that, you know, they've got complaints. What they really are is they're far left when we've consistently been seeing them raising, you know, free Palestine, the usual suspects. We see it at all protests these days. And this is not, you know, they've sort of used this as their, you know, this is a nice message to say. It's not the reality of the situation across France. If you follow the money, where do you think it leads? To many. Well, if you'd have asked me before the president came in, I'd say it went back to USAID. They seem to have a way of funding all of these far left protests. Thankfully, the president managed to stop that. We've actually seen a lot of far left wing groups in the UK miraculously. The funding has dried up. We have no idea why the American taxpayers are funding all these things. But USAID seems to be sending money to all sorts of places. You mentioned USAID. There is some interest in like what's happening in Central and Latin America, where you have some changes. The Donro Doctrine. This comes from Paul Morrow in the Ops Desk, talking about $52 million in aid redirected to Latin America. U.S. bombers withdrawn from Britain, Brazil's October 25th runoff election going in the direction of the right wing. And so there might be something to that. And how would you characterize it from your point of view? Because Europe is so insular and looks inward. The president of the United States has to look all around the world. Yes, look, I mean, it's very sad what's happening to Europe. And, you know, the fact that you feel like you cannot store bombers in the United Kingdom now, they are not safe, is unbelievable. And this is a real shame with what's happened in England. But look, I do think a lot of Americans look on at Europe and they always come to me. They say it's so sad what's happening. I have to remind them it's not that far away from this. If you remember, Biden was flying, doing the exact same thing, flying migrants in from the border, giving them free hotels, free cash, free mobile phones in New York City. But everyone seems to have forgotten about that. What this is, this isn't a uniquely Europe situation. What this is, is a left wing globalist government. We see it in Australia, in Canada, in Europe. They do the same thing. And that is what I see on the future for America. If the midterms go in a bad way for the Republicans, if the next presidential election leads to a not for a Republican, I see them doing the exact same thing. It'll be open borders. They'll flood the country to a mass amnesty. And all of a sudden, you'll never get a chance to elect another Republican president again. All right, Thomas, thank you. I know that you're in Israel to help mark that anniversary of the third anniversary of the October 7th terrorist attacks. Thank you for joining us. We'll keep you, everybody, updated on this. We're going to go back to those pictures. And with all the caution from Niall Gardner, formerly staffed with Margaret Thatcher in the UK, from his experience and what we are watching unfold across Europe, he said, this is just the tip of the iceberg. This is socialism. And this is the takeover of a city and then the country. He's watching this with us contemporaneously. Meanwhile, I want to bring in Simon Hankinson, former State Department official and former U.S. Consul General in Marseilles, France. Simon, thank you for being with me. We've been watching these riots. And they started with teachers and students who were complaining about school conditions there about a week ago. Day after day after day, this has grown to crowds of more than 10,000 at a time. Our correspondent, Jeff Paul, is moving position now to and fro in Paris. He said these groups are traversing the streets, going up and down. And at one point, thousands of people across this week have included arrests, 5,000 of them picked up by the law enforcement, about 200 or so people hurt. Moments ago, while we were in the commercial break, there was a — and we don't have ears on what they are using against this crowd. So we look and we say, OK, was that a flashbang? Was that tear gas only? We're watching this. But that crowd moved like one animal out of the way. And smoke just went up. It was unbelievable. Simon, you lived there for eight years. Did you ever see anything like this coming, if in fact this is fueled by left-wing activists and that's what's being reported? Well, unfortunately, I've seen lots of riots and strikes in France because it's kind of a national sport. I don't think we've seen anything on this scale since the year I was born, 1968. They had massive college student riots in those days that were violent and resulted in the end of the French Republic and the creation of a new government. But what's different here from most of the strikes is just the sheer scale and the flags that you see that are not French and the morphing of kind of far-left, you know, causes into something that, like you said, started off being about school supplies and how many chairs there were in a classroom. What is fomenting this at this moment in history? I think it's a whole bunch of things coming together at the same time. As Niall was saying, you do have mass migration on a scale that we've never seen in European history. Something like the 18-20 percent of the French population is migrant or migrant background, probably more if you count the parents and grandparents. And so there are schools that are, you know, vastly majority North African or Sub-Saharan African, and sometimes they bring their political causes and gripes with them. And it's also true that in Marseilles, in particular, in what they call the northern quarters in Paris, in the banlieue of the suburbs around Paris, they concentrate poverty and immigrants, which don't always go together, but often do. And so when you have, you know, a spark, there's a powder keg there that's ready to be lit. And it's almost an inchoate violence that you probably ask these kids what they're out there protesting and why they're burning trash cans, and half of them won't even be able to give you a straight answer. Look, we've seen this on the ground in the United States during the riding on Ivy League campuses here on the East Coast. Not all of them, but some of them. And here in New York, Columbia University in particular. And you get these left-wing groups that go in, they have caps, they're putting, you know, REI high-end style tents on campuses so students can spend the night. And that's what we live through, and a lot of violence on those campuses because it would turn to rioting at night. This situation is what Niall Gardner moments ago was saying it can get out of control. The president piped in as well during this coverage live this hour just a few minutes ago with, and I'm going to share it again from President Trump, what's happening in France is nothing less than out-of-control mass migration. This is not about schools. This is about Islam wanting to take over a once great country, exclamation point, President D.J. Trump. Niall's caution is that this can go anywhere where socialism, communism are on the rise, and you don't even have the military on the ground here. What are your thoughts about that, having lived there? Why isn't there more response to this from the top of government, not just local law enforcement? Yeah, I mean, President Macron is absent without leave at this point. And obviously, he's at the end of his two terms. He can't run again. The guy they once called Jupiter seems to have shrunk down to a Lilliputian size at this point. The French do have, because rioting is very common there, and like I said, strikes are national support. They have a nationalized or federalized police service and the gendarme, and they have a specialized riot police. I saw them in action many times when I was in France. But I think the sheer numbers here would overwhelm the riot police. They've got multiple demonstrations in multiple cities, and they've only got so many guys. So I think they're probably scratching their heads at headquarters now, wondering where they go and how, because they are outnumbered pretty seriously at this point by what I would argue is a red-green alliance. The elections are coming up in April, and the far-left party under Jean-Luc Mélenchon that calls himself La France Insoumise, France Unbowed, they're in bed with Islamists, basically, because that's a voter bloc that they can count on. And so they make strange bedfellows. But for the time being, they're together. Do you see anything that compares like that to this country as we head into midterms? I don't think this is in the American nature. I mean, we've had riots, the George Floyd riots, most notably. No, I'm talking about that alliance that you just mentioned. No, I do. I absolutely do. I mean, look at the DSA. Look at Al-Sayed and Mamdani. You know, the Palestinian cause seems to be one that the far-left or even just the Democratic Party has absorbed. And I do think there is this marriage of convenience. In the long run, it won't last, because they have fundamentally opposing goals in some respects, particularly social goals, women's equality, and so on. But in the short term, yes, it's a political alliance that we're seeing here in the United States as well. You know, I'm thinking as you're talking, do some of those candidates who are far, far left look at this today? And, you know, good reporters will ask, will your socialism policies lead to this? I think that's a fair question. What do you say? Well, how about this? How about we abolish law enforcement, which is what the DSA wants to do? Yeah, absolutely not. How is that? Oh, here we got some CRFs going out there to hopefully crack some heads. But look, abolishing law enforcement, abolishing immigration enforcement, this is what you would get as a result. Yeah, I mean, I think it's fair and we don't want anybody hurt in this. But this has gone so far afield from expression of free speech. And I don't know how much of it is anticipated or expected out there at this point anyway, because it's mostly shouting and cussing and tear gas and everything else. But they have to establish control. You know, you talk about what our politics are right now. I just think that it's a fair question on the campaign trail now to ask, are you watching what's breaking apart in Europe? These are policies that you call for that could really lay us bare. Should people realize that free stuff's just not free to the socialists and communists? I think politicians, politicians on both sides, but particularly Democrats right now, need to go on the record to say they believe in law and order and they believe in borders and they believe in enforcing those things and holding people accountable. Because, yeah, this could be our future if we're not careful. We don't want that. Simon, last take on this from the State Department perspective. What's our move? We've heard from the president of the United States, Donald Trump, just moments ago. Look, we don't pick sides in foreign elections as much as we would like to individually. As a government, we let other countries choose their leaders the way they want to. I will speak personally. I'm no longer in the State Department. I sure hope they bring in a government that establishes control of their borders and rebuilds their military and their economy. But ultimately, it's up to them. And if the left-wing party wins, we're in for a lot more of this over the next five, seven years. Niall Gardner mentioned to me moments ago Marine Le Pen could get in there. And I don't speak perfect French, but I think I got that name pronounced right. I'm sure it'll be on the news there locally and around the world, that far-right candidate for the next round of elections. Simon Hankinson, thank you for joining me. Thank you for watching all this breaking news on the Faulkner Focus outnumbered after the break. Some elements being deployed to calm those protesters down. Not successful so far. We'll continue to check in as we get more of the chaos unfolding there. Let's bring in Jonathan Turley, constitutional attorney, George Washington University law professor and Fox News contributor. Jonathan, great to have you with us. There's a lot of elements that are likely, thank you, likely contributing to this situation. What's your take on it overall? You know, it's ironic that France is approaching its own 250th anniversary, but that anniversary is of the French Revolution, which became known as the Terror. I talk about that revolution in my recent book, Rage in the Republic, as well as the contemporary conditions in France. And some of those conditions are getting increasingly acute. France has never been a promising environment for businesses. They went through a socialist period under Mitterrand, destroyed their economy, forced businesses out. They've never really recovered from that. They're sort of a social welfare state. They spent a huge amount of money. They have limited revenues coming in. They have a massive immigration problem that is settling on top of this. The result is few resources. The result is that these programs are beginning to ratchet down in terms of what they can supply to the population. So this is all a predictable pattern. It was the same pattern that led the Jacobins to rise 250 years ago. And you're seeing sort of new Jacobins, very radical left groups that are using this to get to the streets and try to create this violence. Yeah. And, you know, it will be interesting to see what the impact is potentially on the spring elections. They have a presidential election coming up. Emmanuel Macron is term limited. These are the three candidates that are in the mix and more prominent, although the list of candidates has not been nailed down quite yet. Do you think that this helps Marine Le Pen, for example, the more conservative candidate, because a lot of this is underpinned in the boats that have been coming and landing in France and the mass migration that we have seen there over the last two decades, really, Jonathan? I think it does. There are other protests that have focused on this massive influx on immigration and how it's pushing the country to the breaking point in terms of social programs. They have really done everything they could to keep her out of office. And this has been going on for years, charges and judicial blocks. And she has stayed firm there. And I think that there are a lot of people in France that now feel that her message is resonating, that we they really have to take extreme measures, including reduction of the government and reduction of immigration. You're seeing that message take hold in other European countries. And this is creating tension, not just with the government of Macron, but it's creating tension with the EU. And so France is very much in the EU orbit, obviously. And a lot of these policies are coming from Brussels and not just Paris. So we're seeing the stages here of a very acute division that is forming in Europe. And it's getting violent in the streets of Paris. Yeah, there was recently an arrangement between the UK and France that boats would be allowed to leave the coastline in France and go to the UK. Now the UK is locking down on that and saying, we're not going to honor that agreement anymore. Those people who came into France have to stay there. So you've really got a simmering pot that is brewing here. We've seen these demonstrations before and they have been quelled. But, you know, who knows where the breaking point is here, Jonathan? What's the comparison quickly, if you can, to the socialist movement that we're seeing here in the United States? Well, I think that's really the cautionary tale for Americans. What you're seeing unfolding in the streets of France could be easily our future. The DSA is arguing for many of the policies of the extreme left in France. And indeed, I wrote about this in the book. They're actually asking for many of the things that come out of the French Revolution, direct democracy, unicameralism. All those things came from the Jacobins. So we could this could be our future unless we're awfully careful. Jonathan Turley, always great to have you. Thank you very much, Jonathan. Good to see you as always. Thank you. But first breaking tonight, France is trying to deal with massive nationwide demonstrations that started over conditions in the country's schools, but now seem to be expanding well beyond that. Organizers called for a day of protests and hundreds of thousands of people turned out. So far, French authorities say officers have made more than 6,100 arrests and more than 700 officers have been injured in exchanges with protesters. President Trump is blaming Islam and unchecked immigration. We get a look tonight from foreign correspondent Jeff Paul, who is live in Paris. Good evening, Jeff. Well, good evening, Brett. These protests have been going on for a couple of weeks, but none have been quite as intense or as large as today's demonstrations. Armed with fireworks, signs and anger, more than a quarter of a million demonstrators throughout France, the majority students, face off against riot police. The officers equipped with rubber bullets, batons and tear gas as protests against conditions in French high schools escalated. What the students want before all is to be able to learn, but to be able to learn in good conditions, which isn't possible. Students say their schools lack teachers, basic supplies, and that some are rat infested and don't have proper ventilation. Classes were partially or completely suspended today at nearly 900 schools, according to the education ministry. This is one of the many schools throughout Paris that are closed today. You can see students out here demonstrating, blockading the entrance as they try to draw attention to the inequalities they say many face in the French school system. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu is asking ministers in France to address student demands, including repairs to aging buildings, a call for longer lunch breaks, and a review of the 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. school day. Extreme violence has knocked on the doors of these high schools. In a functioning democracy, there can be no room for tolerance of violence. Labor groups and trade unions have voiced support for the protests, leading to accusations from the right that left-wing politicians are exploiting the unrest. They deny those accusations. President Trump weighed in on truth social. What's happening in France is nothing less than out-of-control mass migration. This isn't about schools. This is about Islam wanting to take over a once great country. And tonight, we are learning, according to government officials, since these demonstrations started, more than 6,000 people have been taken to custody. Brett?