# Bismillah C'est Les Ténèbres During France's October 2026 lycée protests, teenagers posted Snapchat screenshots of accounts they identified as undercover police officers posing as students to track blockade plans. One account under the name Mamadou opened with 'Bismillah, c'est les ténèbres,' an Arabic-French line that students read as a crude racist stereotype of North African youth. By mid-October 2026, the sentence appeared on handwritten banners at marches and in parody videos mocking the police. ## Origin The screenshots circulated during the student mobilization in early October 2026, when teenagers organizing blockades on Snapchat group chats noticed messages that did not match normal teenage speech[1]. A widely shared capture showed an account named Mamadou asking for details about a blockade location and opening with 'Bismillah c'est les ténèbres'[1]. Translated from Arabic, bismillah means 'in the name of God,' which turns the full sentence into 'in the name of God, it's the darkness,' not a coherent French expression (translated from French)[2]. Students read the fakes as racial profiling, since the accounts leaned on Maghrebi names, Algerian flags and Arabic words to approximate what the authors assumed protesters would sound like[3]. - **Platform:** Snapchat (origin) / French social media (viral spread) - **Creator:** Unknown - **Date:** 2026 ## Overview Parody formats typically imitate the stiff infiltration messages word for word, with a Maghrebi first name as pseudo, Algerian flag emojis between every sentence and random Arabic words dropped into French[1]. Students post mock Snapchat exchanges where the fake 'lycéen' asks for the blockade address while clumsily approximating Gen Z slang[2]. At protest marches, Bismillah, c'est les ténèbres shows up on cardboard signs, sometimes next to drawings of a bewildered officer trying to type like a teenager[2]. The tone leans toward affectionate mockery more than anger, with students pointing to the attempts as proof the police misread them along racial lines[1]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Bismillah C'est Les Ténèbres? Bismillah C'est Les Ténèbres is a catchphrase from Snapchat screenshots during the October 2026 French lycée protests, lifted from an account that students identified as a failed police infiltration attempt using racist North African stereotypes[1]. ### Where did Bismillah C'est Les Ténèbres come from? The line surfaced on Snapchat in a message written by an account called Mamadou that asked lycéen group chats for the location of a blockade[1]. ### What does Bismillah C'est Les Ténèbres mean? Translated from Arabic and French, the phrase reads as 'in the name of God, it's the darkness,' a mix that does not form a coherent sentence and that students flagged as proof of a scripted infiltration (translated from French)[2]. ### How do you use Bismillah C'est Les Ténèbres? French students use the sentence as a protest slogan on cardboard banners at marches and as a punchline in parody Snapchat screenshots imitating the fake accounts[2]. ### Is Bismillah C'est Les Ténèbres still popular? As of mid-October 2026, FranceInfo described the sentence as one of the main slogans of the ongoing lycéen mobilization (translated from French)[2]. ## References 1. [https://www.huffingtonpost.fr/france/video/bismillah-c-est-les-tenebres-l-infiltration-raciste-de-policiers-parmi-les-lyceens-est-devenue-un-meme_337493.html]() 2. [https://www.franceinfo.fr/societe/education/blocage-des-lycees/comment-bismillah-c-est-les-tenebres-est-devenu-un-slogan-de-la-mobilisation-lyceenne_8234173.html]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/bismillah-cest-les-tenebres]() 4. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMWeeQI8X78]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/bismillah-cest-les-tenebres Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library