More than seven in ten people in France are in favour of stripping citizenship for foreigners who participated in the violent riots that broke out following the death of an Algerian teenager last month.
A survey conducted by French broadcaster CNews this week found that 73 per cent of the country would support removing French citizenship from dual nationals who took part in the recent spate of racially-inspired riots accross the country.
Although young people were less inclined to support the idea, the poll demonstrated a “wide cross-generational support”, according to the broadcaster, which reported that just 34 per cent of those under 35 opposed the idea of stripping citizenship from foreign rioters, while just 29 per cent of 35-49-year-olds were against the idea and only 22 per cent for those over 50.
Conservatives and right-wing populists were the most in favour of the measure, with 91 per cent of such voters backing the idea. However, somewhat surprisingly, a majority of voters of liberal and leftist parties, 56 per cent, supported depriving citizenship of foreign rioters.
The only political factions to see a majority oppose were those who supported the far-left La France Insoumise party of socialist Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the French Green Party (Europe Écologie les Verts), with 55 per cent and 52 per cent opposing, respectively.
The riots, which saw 1,000 buildings set on fire, 5,600 vehicles destroyed, and over 3,300 people arrested, have brought the topic of immigration to the forefront of the political conversation in France, with six in then people citing “the consequence of the failures of our migration policy” as the cause for the riots.
Speaking to Breitbart London ahead of Bastille Day, French MEP Patricia Chagnon-Clevers said: “France has been put to the sword by thugs who no longer confine themselves to imposing their laws in their neighbourhoods, but who come in hordes to attack OUR police, our prisons, and to loot and burn at the very heart of our cities. Even in the heart of Paris.
“The French now know that savagery is back in our country.”
The National Rally politician, who was elected to the European Parliament last year, argued that the government must “halt all immigration” to restore order to the country.
“In reality, the state has long since ceased to exist in many parts of our country, which has been infected by mass immigration, where women wear veils and radical imams preach hatred of the West, where gangs thrive on drug trafficking and young kids earn hundreds of euros a week working for drug gangs and where successive governments over the past 40 years have allowed a counter-society to take root, one that is half-religious and half-criminal.”