As Kansans were waiting for President Donald Trump to arrive at his rally in Wichita this week, they were treated to a new addition to the pre-show program: footage of this weekend’s violent protests in France, most of it clipped from Fox News, aired on large screens.

That the unrest was unfolding 4,700 miles away from the Heartland Credit Union Arena seemed immaterial to the point Trump and his team were trying to make. This could happen here, Trump would later warn his crowd, if Democrats win in November’s midterms.

“When you see burning steeples and raging fires in France, just remember that is what the radical ‘Dumocrats’ want to do to America,” he said Monday.

France, he claimed, was being “conquered, looted and burned to the ground by migrants, jihadists and communists who hate Christianity” and “the Western civilization itself.”It’s a theme the president has already said he’ll return to Tuesday night in North Carolina. With a narrowing window for harsh political winds to shift, Trump and Republicans have seized on the violence as they make their final arguments to American voters. To some of Trump’s advisers, the unrest has looked a little like an “October surprise” that some believe could help improve what had been dire prospects for victory in just two weeks.

The torched cars, graffiti and looted shops are all a cautionary tale, they have warned, and the inevitable result of liberal policies — particularly on immigration — that they have been warning against for years.

There is little evidence the violence in France over the weekend was carried out by illegal immigrants, or immigrants of any kind. The demonstrations began as a student movement demanding better funding and improvements at schools. Labor unions and other groups joined to protest high living costs and record fuel prices.

What led to the scenes of violence is a matter of dispute among France’s political leaders, and has led to a round of finger-pointing.

Trump, along with right-wing leaders in France, used the scenes to accuse French President Emmanuel Macron and other European centrists of failing to get a handle on uncontrolled migration from the Middle East and Africa.

“Our country is caught in a vice…between violence and powerlessness,” Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader, said, suggesting only her firm hand could restore order amid Macron’s “chaos.”Le Pen, who is standing in the presidential election for the far-right National Rally party, has sought to inject the issue of migration into the debate, blaming the violence on delinquents from France’s , poor urban areas where much of the country’s migrant population lives.

Trump stopped short Tuesday of saying whether he would endorse Le Pen in next year’s election, where she is a front-runner. But he nonetheless appeared to be echoing her arguments, and insisted Macron had ignored his advice to crack down on migration.

“Some people think it’s a little controversial. I don’t care,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Tuesday. “It’s an immigration problem. We have people that poured into France, and they were also unchecked, unvetted, like with (President Joe) Biden when he was doing. We don’t do that.”Earlier in the day, he specifically invoked “what is taking place in France” in pledging that the spending in outside money he oversees will top $400 million by Election Day.

It may be too early to tell whether Trump’s decision to seize on the images from France will have a determinative effect among American midterm voters. Most say their primary concerns are the high cost of living, and Trump’s immigration agenda has become unpopular, with majorities of Americans saying in polls his administration has gone too far in deporting undocumented immigrants from the United States.

Trump, however, has chafed at recommendations from political advisers that he not mention immigration as much as he stumps for Republican candidates. As he shines a spotlight on the situation in Europe, he has once again made a hardline approach to immigration a centerpiece of his pitch.

“If you want to see what is at stake in this election,” Trump said ominously in Kansas on Monday, “just look at what’s happening in France.”Other Republicans have followed suit. Vice President JD Vance wrote on X that immigration was to blame for the violence.

“Western liberals imported the third world into France and other countries in the name of diversity and compassion,” he wrote in a post that featured video of the fire that destroyed the historic town hall in Limoges, the town in central France famous for its porcelain. “They ignored fundamental questions of assimilation and compatibility.”Trump referred approvingly to Vance’s post in the Oval Office on Tuesday, and insisted that concerns about education or costs were not driving the scenes of unrest.

“It’s not about education. It’s about immigration,” he said. “It’s about illegal people coming in who basically hate France. They hate the people. They hate everything.”