French President Emmanuel Macron has accused foreign leaders of exploiting the riots which erupted across the country on Saturday for electoral purposes.

Without naming them, he said they were campaigning for forthcoming elections “at France’s expense” with their comments on the violence, which erupted on the fringe of cost-of-living protests.

Speaking on a visit to the Middle East, he referred to them as “leaders who are in campaign mode, whether here in the region or on the other side of the Atlantic”.

It was an apparent swipe at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces parliamentary elections next week, and US President Donald Trump, for whom mid-term polls fall next month.

Macron said the unnamed leaders had been influenced by fake videos generated by AI about the riots.

Nearly 150 people have been jailed and more than 800 brought before the courts since the riots which gripped Paris and other cities including Lyon, Marseille and Nice.

Video of running battles between masked rioters and police, as well as property being destroyed and stores being looted, spread across social media.

The government admitted the police had “lost control” during the violence, which came after weeks of protests by students over conditions in high schools.

Macron vowed afterwards that the authorities would be “uncompromising” towards “agitators from ultra-left fringe groups”, which he blamed for much of the trouble.