FRANCE PERSPECTIVE

Paris watches Belfast with the anxious familiarity of someone who knows the machinery. French coverage methodically reconstructs the chain: a knife attack on Monday night on Kinnaird Avenue, north Belfast, attributed to a 30-year-old Sudanese asylum seeker; a 'barbaric' video gone viral, showing the attacker straddling his victim, a knife raised; then hundreds of masked protesters who, the very next day, torch buses, cars and homes, going 'door to door' looking for foreigners. The tone is analytical rather than compassionate: the French press stresses the role of 'calls to hatred' from far-right figures — Tommy Robinson chief among them — and the amplification by Elon Musk, who urged people on X to protest 'repeatedly and loudly.' Prime Minister Keir Starmer, widely quoted, denounces acts that are 'totally unjustified' and pledges to 'restore order.' For France, which has known its own flare-ups after communally charged incidents, the Northern Irish episode is no exotic curiosity but a warning: the virality of a video, the failure of the asylum system and the political exploitation form a cocktail Paris knows all too well. The coverage also gives voice to the foreigners targeted, gathering firsthand accounts of the fear lived in the affected neighborhoods.