France counters US ICE meme with gun death statistics

The French foreign ministry responded to a viral post from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) account by sharing statistics on firearm deaths in the United States. The French ministry’s page, French Response, countered ICE’s video of masked protesters in France with data showing the US had 5.9 gun deaths per 100,000 people, compared to 0.3 in France.

The exchange followed comments from President Donald Trump, who claimed without evidence that migrants were fueling the ongoing riots in France. Trump posted on Truth Social that people from an entirely different world had shattered France, urging the country to close its borders. Vice President JD Vance echoed the messaging, attributing the unrest to third-world immigration and warning American voters of a similar outcome if they supported Democrats in the November midterms.

French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the comments as unacceptable and stupid, noting that those speaking ill of France do not love the country. The protests in France began last month over student frustrations with classroom conditions and have since expanded to include cost of living concerns, with hundreds of thousands of people participating in demonstrations.

Read the full story at The Independent.