The Ben Shapiro Show - October 02, 2026


France Is Burning. Here's Why It Matters for You.

Hosted by
Ben Shapiro
Mentioned
Sebastian Lacorno Saint Denis Lyon Jean Luc Mélenchon Edouard Jeffrey Nelson Mandela Armel Lachan Louis Burden Toulouse
Elon, Dario, Zuck, and Karp Walk Into the White House

Episode Stats


Length

11 minutes

Words per minute

168.36

Word count

1,981

Sentence count

136

Harmful content

Toxicity

4

sentences flagged

Hate speech

26

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcripts from "The Ben Shapiro Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 France is being forced to take austerity measures mandated by basic reality.
00:00:03.000 Basically, they're bankrupt, and that means they have to cut some budgets. 1.00
00:00:06.000 And left wing agitators and Muslim immigrants are taking advantage of the situation to essentially riot and burn things. 1.00
00:00:13.000 Why is this relevant to us here in America? 0.99
00:00:15.000 Because this is what the future of America looks like if we do not get our fiscal house and our immigration system under control. 0.96
00:00:20.000 So, according to The Guardian, a fast growing protest by high school students over long hours, teacher shortages, and decaying facilities has escalated into urban violence, according to the French government. 0.97
00:00:30.000 The government says many schools would switch to online classes to protect teachers and pupils.
00:00:36.000 The current prime minister, a man named Sebastian Lacorno, called a crisis cabinet meeting on Thursday and told ministers to cancel travel plans to deal with the demonstrations, which erupted in the Paris region last week but have snowballed across the country.
00:00:48.000 So the students are apparently very upset with cuts.
00:00:51.000 Okay, now I have a question.
00:00:52.000 When was the last time students rioted over cuts to the educational budget?
00:00:57.000 Does this feel a little bit stagey to you?
00:01:01.000 Does it feel as though this is being manipulated?
00:01:03.000 Apparently, there are 900 plus demonstrations and blockades active across France.
00:01:07.000 400 high schools, Lycees, that's one in 10 in the country, were impacted by disruptions, as well as universities in Paris, Marseille, Lille, Nantes, Strasbourg, Toulouse, Lyon, and Bordeaux.
00:01:19.000 More than 3,000 students have been detained.
00:01:21.000 There have been 1,950 arrests.
00:01:24.000 Over 300 police officers and dozens of firefighters, teachers, and students have sustained injuries as well.
00:01:30.000 According to DW.com. Prime Minister Sebastian Lacorno called the escalation of the situation irresponsible and said fireworks, fires, violence near high schools.
00:01:39.000 Nothing justifies endangering students, staff, or police officers.
00:01:44.000 The education minister, a man named Edouard Jeffrey, said that the protests are a classic high school student movement and are being exploited by violent elements.
00:01:51.000 So it's a mostly peaceful protest that has emerged into violence.
00:01:55.000 And a lot of people are believing that this thing is being sponsored by the La France Insoumise, that's the France Unbowed Party.
00:02:03.000 And its presidential candidate, Jean Luc Mélenchon, who's like a full scale communist.
00:02:08.000 Mélenchon has accused the government of implementing a crackdown with obvious racist undertones.
00:02:13.000 So basically, a gigantic student revolt that is also being fueled by radical Islam in France. 0.55
00:02:18.000 It turns out an enormous number of the people who are burning things are radical Muslims in France. 0.76
00:02:22.000 So combine the necessity of austerity measures with a left wing political orientation that says that any cut is some form of deep injustice, combined with migrants who come to France and hate the culture there. 0.84
00:02:35.000 And this is what you end up with in France France is a disaster area.
00:02:38.000 France is basically lost at this point.
00:02:41.000 Here's some video of Bordeaux schools burning.
00:02:43.000 You can see at least in this clip, seven separate fires burning in this clip.
00:02:50.000 You can see all over the city, just fires all over the city in Bordeaux.
00:02:59.000 And again, this is all supposedly being caused by budget cuts.
00:03:03.000 Here's some video of the students smashing the windows.
00:03:03.000 By budget cuts.
00:03:06.000 Because obviously, if you're deeply worried, Over the budgetary system of education, the first thing you do is make it more expensive by smashing all of the windows.
00:03:14.000 This is a useful thing, apparently.
00:03:22.000 And there it is in the background.
00:03:23.000 You can see it the Palestinian flag. 1.00
00:03:26.000 Wherever you find people just burning and destroying and ripping things down and looting and just being generally horrible human beings, you can always find the flag of the cause. 1.00
00:03:35.000 You can always find the flag because, again, the flag of scavenging, the flag of destruction is the Palestinian flag. 0.98
00:03:42.000 Again, here's more video of a fire at the Nelson Mandela High School in Nantes. 0.97
00:03:48.000 Again, one of the most, I'd say, darkly amusing things about this sort of stuff is that institutions named after Nelson Mandela, who is hardly a right winger and designed to honor racial integration and left wing politics, by the way, is being burned by left wing protesters.
00:04:10.000 You can see, like, totally on fire.
00:04:13.000 Amazing.
00:04:16.000 And again, these fires are everywhere, everywhere in France right now.
00:04:20.000 Here's some video of a female cop being chased and knocked down by the rioting students, the most delightful people.
00:04:28.000 She's literally just moving, and you can see the look at that.
00:04:32.000 Oh, young, young men.
00:04:33.000 Shocker. 0.72
00:04:36.000 Young men chasing and knocking down the female cop.
00:04:38.000 And the caption is all the smiling, crying faces.
00:04:43.000 Yeah. 0.98
00:04:44.000 Do those look like native Frenchmen to you?
00:04:46.000 Some of those people do not look particularly native to France.
00:04:49.000 Meanwhile, firefighters are being accosted by rioters and burning a fire truck in Marseille.
00:04:56.000 Burning fire trucks. 0.97
00:04:57.000 That's great.
00:04:58.000 You're very upset about public services, so you burn the fire trucks and you set on fire the educational institutions.
00:05:07.000 This is what France has done to itself.
00:05:13.000 The wages of a gigantic welfare state, open borders, and no checks on immigration.
00:05:17.000 This is what you end up with.
00:05:19.000 Listen up.
00:05:20.000 There are enough people listening to this show right now that if they don't vote, It could swing key states in the 2026 election to the Democrats.
00:05:27.000 And everybody listening knows every single ultra far left Democratic socialist will show up to vote this fall.
00:05:33.000 Democrats are fired up.
00:05:34.000 We cannot let them win because if we lose, they will undo everything our movement has fought for.
00:05:39.000 So I need you to vote early so you can bank your vote and fight back against the left's turnout machine.
00:05:44.000 Go to GOPvotes.org right now.
00:05:46.000 Find out when you can vote.
00:05:48.000 Making your voice heard is easier than ever.
00:05:50.000 You can get election reminders, look up your polling location, pick a date to vote early.
00:05:53.000 Go to GOPvotes.org today, paid for by SLF PAC.
00:05:58.000 Not authorized by any candidate or candidates committee.
00:06:01.000 Well, the mayor of Saint Denis, which is a precinct of Paris, where basically it's a no go zone. 1.00
00:06:10.000 It is a Muslim occupied area of Paris. 0.98
00:06:17.000 First generation immigrants are 38% of the city's population.
00:06:20.000 Again, those immigrants are coming largely from North Africa and the Middle East.
00:06:25.000 Second generation immigrants make up 30% of the city's population, Saint Denis, this precinct of Paris.
00:06:30.000 The mayor, who's a far left communist basically, joined the student rioters to attack the high school.
00:06:40.000 And he's celebrating again, cheering with him as they set fires outside the high school.
00:06:52.000 Does that picture look to you like a bunch of people who go back in France generations precisely?
00:06:52.000 Look at that picture.
00:07:00.000 It's really insane.
00:07:01.000 So, again, combination for the West to watch here would be budgets that are totally out of control, that force austerity cuts, combined with left wing politics, combined with high levels of immigration from places that hate Western civilization.
00:07:13.000 This is the coalition of scavengers that I talk about in my book, Lions and Scavengers. 0.76
00:07:17.000 According to the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, as well as the Ministry of the Interior, 29% of all immigrants in France are from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. 0.93
00:07:28.000 The second biggest block of migrants are from sub Saharan countries in Africa.
00:07:31.000 They make up 17% of all migrants.
00:07:34.000 1.1 million middle and near eastern migrants have arrived in France since 2011.
00:07:41.000 About half the total immigrant population of France was born in Africa.
00:07:45.000 The Muslim population of France went from 0.5% in 1985 to 7% in 2025.
00:07:52.000 Meanwhile, in France, Catholic identification has dropped from 83% in 1985 to 43% in 2025.
00:08:00.000 People with no religious affiliation has skyrocketed from 13% in 1985 to 37% in 2025.
00:08:06.000 So, literally, the only growing religious denomination in France at this point is Islam by leaps and bounds. 0.99
00:08:11.000 And the Muslims who are being imported are quite radical. 0.95
00:08:14.000 A political radicalization study of Muslim youth in Paris and Lyon. 1.00
00:08:18.000 Between 2020 and 2021, found across a series of structured interviews, youth became radicalized when they felt estranged from mainstream societal values like morality, secularism, and the French attitude of assimilation, and two, when they sensed dissatisfaction toward the political institutions that exist, like representative democracy.
00:08:35.000 So, how many young Muslims in France are radicalized?
00:08:40.000 Again, according to Middle East Forum and polling data that's been done, 38% of French Muslims endorsed radicalism, identifying with the Muslim Brotherhood.
00:08:49.000 38%, 4 in 10, 57% of respondents between the ages of 15 and 24 believe that Sharia law ought to trump French law. 0.97
00:09:00.000 And again, it's all the same thing. 0.53
00:09:01.000 Here are the students who are posing with the far left commie flag, right?
00:09:05.000 The flags that they're holding up, Armel Lachan's flag, next to the Palestinian flag. 0.59
00:09:08.000 This is the coalition of people who wish to rip down the civilization and will use any excuse to do so. 0.81
00:09:14.000 So these are people who are standing for legitimate terrorist groups alongside people who are just communists.
00:09:20.000 Meanwhile, Louis Boyard, the far left deputy of the French National Assembly, says that any form of police involvement is a form of repression. 0.91
00:09:28.000 This, by the way, would be the same schmuck you'll remember on the show we showed it, who removes his Rolex watch on camera because he was lambasting the rich.
00:09:35.000 He's wearing a Rolex and he quietly removes it in the middle of the interview. 0.93
00:09:40.000 Again, the drive behind this is the reality of France's broken budget.
00:09:46.000 When you have a country that is coming apart at the seams because of immigration and left wing politics, And then you have a budget that is broken, all of the factors are there for complete rioting, collapse, chaos in the streets.
00:09:57.000 France has not had a balanced budget since 1974.
00:10:01.000 They've operated at a deficit for nearly 60 years.
00:10:03.000 They have the highest ratio of public spending to GDP on planet Earth.
00:10:07.000 57% of GDP is spent on taxpayer funded programs.
00:10:12.000 In 2024, France's government spending was 1.71 trillion euros.
00:10:18.000 Public debt as of quarter one of 2026 is 3.54 trillion euros.
00:10:22.000 Interest payments cost the government 66.6 billion euros annually.
00:10:28.000 The spend is on universal health care.
00:10:30.000 It is on hospitals, medical research, care for low income residents.
00:10:34.000 That's about 20% of their government spend.
00:10:37.000 Another 40% of their government spend is social security.
00:10:40.000 So 62% of their entire budget is welfare and health care spending.
00:10:44.000 How does that compare to the US?
00:10:45.000 Well, in the US, we spend some 54% of our budget on welfare and health care.
00:10:50.000 The biggest difference is that because of our tax structure and because we have an actual booming economy and low regulation, Our public spend is 35% of our GDP, as opposed to, again, 57% of GDP for the French.
00:11:04.000 But again, here is the problem.
00:11:05.000 Look at the factors in France and then apply them to the rest of the West.
00:11:08.000 We have countries that are full scale bankrupt because of the national debt that they are racking up on public spending, on welfare programs.
00:11:15.000 And then you have politicians who lie to everyone and tell you that you can have endless welfare spending, you can have endless government expenditure, expanding government programs, and also, by the way, open immigration.
00:11:25.000 You can have all those things.
00:11:26.000 The truth is that no responsible country can have.
00:11:30.000 A welfare system that grows beyond the boundaries of a budget, beyond the boundaries of an economy, and no responsible country can open its borders.
00:11:37.000 What an amazing video you just watched!
00:11:39.000 Wasn't that amazing?
00:11:40.000 Well, you know, if you think so, head on over to dailywire.comslash subscribe to watch the full show ad free or check out this crazy story here.