Singham-Funded Network Amplifying French Unrest, Same Groups Active in U.S. Anti-Israel Protests

Media and activist organizations funded by Shanghai-based tech executive Neville Roy Singham are amplifying France’s recent student-led protests and riots, according to a Fox News Digital investigation and reporting by Just the News. The same network previously promoted anti-Israel demonstrations across the United States after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

The French demonstrations began in late September, reportedly over teacher shortages, overcrowded classrooms, and deteriorating school buildings. They later expanded into broader opposition to the government. French authorities reported more than 2,000 arrests and hundreds of officers injured during violence on Oct. 17–18, including the partial destruction by fire of the 143-year-old town hall in Limoges.

Fox News Digital identified 50 organizations participating in or promoting the French movement. Only 15 were student or youth groups. The remaining 35 included a dozen labor unions, eight communist or socialist organizations, four political parties—among them La France Insoumise and the French Communist Party—and one Palestinian advocacy group. Crowds waving Palestinian flags appeared alongside communist and other far-left groups during the weekend unrest.

New York-based BreakThrough News, which the investigation describes as funded by Singham, has been among the most active international amplifiers. The outlet sent “BREAKING” alerts as students gathered at the Bastille and described the actions as a “historic strike against austerity.” One Instagram video of far-left Saint-Denis Mayor Bally Bagayoko positioning himself in front of students during a police confrontation received roughly 346,000 likes in a single day. BreakThrough later posted a collage of youth protest footage from Brazil, Belgium, Chile, France, Germany, India, Spain, and the United States under the heading “YOUTH RISE UP AROUND THE WORLD.”

Singham, born in the United States, sold his software company ThoughtWorks in 2017 and now lives in Shanghai. The New York Times reported in 2023 on his ties to the Chinese Communist Party. He has directed substantial funding to U.S. groups including The People’s Forum, which he launched in 2017 with more than $20 million, and CodePink, co-founded by his wife, Jodie Evans. Those organizations were central to organizing and promoting post-Oct. 7 anti-Israel protests in American cities.

Shared organizational links connect the French activity to the earlier U.S. protests. Indian Alliance Paris, a small group of Indian students and professionals, co-sponsored a January 2023 anti-NATO teach-in at The People’s Forum in Manhattan. Other participants included CodePink, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and the Democratic Socialists of America. Indian Alliance Paris has since posted in support of the French students and linked the demonstrations to youth actions in India.

Vijay Prashad, executive director of the Singham-funded Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, posted “Paris–New Delhi–Buenos Aires” after the French protests broadened, pairing the line with a lyric from The Clash. In an interview with BreakThrough News, Jodie Evans referenced the French, Spanish, and Indian youth protests while promoting a CodePink campaign against U.S. military spending planned for Washington in November. “I want people to look at France, Spain and India,” she said.

Heritage Foundation senior fellow Mike Gonzalez told Fox News Digital that the French unrest reflects “the same Red-Green ecosystem that disrupts infrastructure chokeholds in our country such as the Brooklyn Bridge, college campuses and congressional hearings,” adding that BreakThrough News has “the same sugardaddy—Neville Roy Singham.”

The House Ways and Means Committee has subpoenaed The People’s Forum, BreakThrough News, and Tricontinental for financial records related to Singham’s network as part of an inquiry into possible Chinese Communist Party influence through U.S. tax-exempt organizations. Chairman Jason Smith has warned the groups that failure to comply by Oct. 20 could lead to depositions of executives and staff, including Singham. A separate Justice Department grand jury investigation in the Southern District of New York has examined alleged financial issues involving the network. No charges have been filed against Singham or the named organizations.