Demonstrations across France on Saturday, 17 October, against rising living costs turned into riots in which people attacked public buildings and looted shops and retail outlets. According to the authorities, about 1,200 people were detained and 150 officers were injured. Oko.press puts the number of people detained nationwide at more than 2,400, and the coverage does not reconcile the two detention figures. Oko.press also reports that the protests, apart from the acts of vandalism that accompanied them, concerned education and social issues.
On Monday evening, 19 October, Donald Tusk posted a video on X in which he argued that he had always opposed open-door migration policy. In the opening minute he asked whether Poland faced the kind of 'gloomy phenomenon' visible on the streets of Paris, and he linked the unrest to illegal migration. Commenters responded by recalling a 2022 post in which Tusk, after Emmanuel Macron's election victory, promised 'more Europe in Europe' and predicted a day when Poland would have 'Paris in Warsaw'. Marcin Przydacz, head of the International Policy Bureau of President Karol Nawrocki, reacted sharply to the video. Tusk said that while Przydacz worked at the foreign ministry, visa trading 'flourished'.
Tusk said the government had cut visa issuance by 87% comparing 2026 with 2022, reduced work permits for foreigners by 69%, and cut student visas by 65%. He also said deportations this year were up 200% against 2022. He stated that more than 20,000 illegal border crossings from Belarus succeeded in 2022, against zero this year. Tusk further said that between 2018 and 2023 Poland issued about a million visas a year, and that under the PiS government 3,000 legal migrants entered Poland each day. These are Tusk's own figures as presented in the video.
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Tusk summed up his view of the previous government's record in a single sentence.
“PiS's migration policy was lies, corruption and helplessness. Lots of talk, lots of hatred and zero effectiveness.”
Oko.press writes that no information shows legal or illegal migrants formed a larger group among the rioters, and that no statistics support the suggestion, which it says Tusk likely made, that those detained have immigrant backgrounds even if they are French citizens. Commenters also recalled Tusk's earlier description of migrants as 'poor people looking for a place on earth'.
Tusk described a 'sharp confrontation' at the European Council summit in Brussels between Spain and a bloc of Poland, Italy and Denmark. According to oko.press, the dispute concerned criticism of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's plan to legalize the stay of half a million migrants who have lived in Spain for years, many of them working informally. TVP reports that Poland, Italy and Denmark proposed wording for the summit conclusions on migration in opposition to Sánchez's policy. Oko.press says the Spanish plan is meant to raise tax revenue and ease labour shortages linked to demographic problems. Tusk also linked the debate to the migration crisis in Ceuta and said a change of migration policy was still possible in Western European countries, adding that the problem was barely visible in Poland.
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On Monday evening, 19 October, Donald Tusk posted a video linking France's weekend riots to migration and citing visa and deportation figures from his government. Online commenters quickly recalled his earlier statements, and President Karol Nawrocki's international policy chief Marcin Przydacz responded sharply.
AI text based on reports by NIEZALEZNA.PL, oko.press, TVP Info and other publishers. Published .