France is in shock over weekend riots.
What Happened
Senseless destruction of historic buildings, businesses, and schools came to a head on Saturday throughout France. Up to 800,000 people were involved in protests throughout France.
The protests started with students upset over classroom size, lack of teachers, and buildings in need of repairs.
Students blockaded hundreds of schools and set fire to, or damaged, at least 24 of them. Thousands of students have been arrested since September. Over 1,000 police officers, students and school staff have been hurt.
The students were joined by unions, radical Left rioters, and opportunistic looters to break into businesses and steal what they can.
Some historic buildings have been heavily damaged by arson. Here are some takes from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Twitter.
Huge Riots and Anti-Government Protests Roil France
The New York Times reports Huge Riots and Anti-Government Protests Roil France
France is reeling from its largest unrest in years, after anti-government demonstrations devolved into riots and looting that caused nationwide damage and deepened a sense of national reckoning.
As the chaos subsided on Sunday, political leaders blamed each other for the unrest and citizens looked on with shock at their cities, littered with broken glass and the charred skeletons of burned cars.
The violence marked a convergence between a weeks-old student movement for better school conditions, an emerging national movement to protest high living costs, and opportunistic rioters who used the demonstrations as a cover for looting.
The protests have heightened a sense of fiscal and social crisis in France, the European Union’s second-largest economy. The government is trying to pass an unpopular belt-tightening budget while facing public anger that has helped position Marine Le Pen, a far-right leader, as the favorite to win the presidency in an election next spring.
More than half a million people joined some 110 marches throughout France on Saturday, the interior ministry said, in the biggest day of protest since the demonstrations began about a month ago. A major union, the C.G.T., gave a higher estimate, saying 800,000 protesters had turned out.
Amid many peaceful demonstrations, rioters vandalized roughly 1,500 shops and many symbols of the French state, leading to roughly 2,000 arrests. An arson attack largely destroyed the town hall in Limoges, in central France. In Marseille, the second-largest city, masked people broke into a government building and tipped over a bust of Marianne, a symbol of the Republic.
Destructive Protests Sweep Across France
The Washington Post reports Destructive Protests Sweep Across France, with Buildings Burned and Hundreds Detained.
Violence and destruction swept across France late Saturday as protests over rising living costs, educational conditions and proposed budget cuts erupted into looting, arson and widespread mayhem.
As public anger boiled over, more than half a million people took to the streets in cities from Lille in the north to Marseille in the south, as well as in Paris, the capital. At least 1,800 people were detained and 150 police officers and gendarmes were injured, authorities said.
On Sunday morning, people awoke to images of littered streets and wrecked government buildings, the most shocking being the charred shell of the historic town hall in Limoges, which was consumed by fire with its spire collapsing into bright orange flames in the night.
The unrest follows weeks of mostly student-led protests, some also involving violence and vandalism, which have accelerated with the support of labor unions and other groups protesting the policies of President Emmanuel Macron’s government.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu blamed “far-left groups” for Saturday’s violence in several cities, adding that “criminals have joined in to loot and destroy.”
Lecornu told reporters that the government would not be “intimidated” and accused the “ultraleft ” of stoking violence ahead of a presidential election next year. “There is obviously a political battle to wage,” Lecornu said, adding that France was at a “point of no return.”
Le Pen Chimes In
Le Pen Translation
Loot, ransack, destroy, attack law enforcement: the rioters have once again poisoned the October 17 demonstrations in defense of purchasing power.
Legitimate social demands have once again been held hostage by the far left and the speeches of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s deputies, who, by legitimizing violence, viewing order as oppression and disorder as a right, seek to plunge the country into chaos.
Faced with this incendiary strategy, the French people, who can no longer bear being caught between the austerity and fiscal hammering of those in power and the insurrectionary activists, must hold out for a few more months.
We will free them from Macronist toxic policies and protect them from the violence of the far left.
Huge Riots in France Prompt Shock and Blame Game
Also consider Huge Riots in France Prompt Shock and Blame Game
France was in a state of shock on Sunday, as citizens walked through streets lined with shattered storefronts, charred cars and burned-out government buildings after the country’s largest demonstrations in years devolved into riots and looting.
The unrest on Saturday — which led to some 2,000 arrests — caused widespread damage to several symbols of the state, including a 19th-century city hall in Limoges, a town in central France renowned for its porcelain, that was largely destroyed in a nighttime arson attack. More than 600 police officers were injured, Laurent Nuñez, France’s interior minister, said on social media on Sunday.
Rioters attacked city halls from Lille in northern France to Marseille in the south, where they broke into the local government headquarters and tipped over a bust of Marianne, a symbol of the French Republic. A fire also destroyed a tourist office in Lyon, and 1,500 shops were damaged or looted nationwide, according to Alexandre Bompard, head of the French federation of commerce and distribution, who estimated that the cost of repairs could run into hundreds of millions of dollars.
“I’ve never seen this before, I am disgusted,” said Sophie Vanpoperinghe, 47, as she gazed at ransacked shops on Boulevard Magenta, the road in Paris where she has lived for 22 years and which is frequently used for demonstrations.
“It feels like society is spinning out of control,” said Henri Parent, 56, a tourist from Belgium who was surveying broken storefronts in central Paris on Sunday morning.
That’s a free link with many shocking images of the widespread destruction, fires, and looting.
Videos do a much better job than words or links. Please watch this one.
Massive Riots in Marseille
Footage from Central Paris
The historic Limoges town hall has just completely collapsed after far-left rioters set it on fire. It was built in 1876. It survived World Wars. It did not survive modern France.
Morons cheered.
“Stop, This Isn’t the Cause”
An Amazing Police Scene in Paris
This is another must-see clip.
Comment of the Day
Paris looks like a war zone. What is the cause? The cost of living? Mass immigration? A mismanaged economy? Excessive spending on war? A crisis of political legitimacy caused by an unaccountable elite? Europe will likely be a very different place 10 years from now.
Le Pen’s Fiscal Plan for France Cannot Possibly Work
On October 8, 2026, I commented Le Pen’s Fiscal Plan for France Cannot Possibly Work, Will Voters Care?
No one ever cares about fiscal sanity in France or the US.
They all lie about growth, taxes, revenue, wars, and everything else.
France has gotten away with flouting EU budget rules but Greece didn’t. The reason is France is France. More accurately France is too big to bail.
But the EU has no love affair with Le Pen, so the crisis will surely come to a head in 2027, one way or another, no matter who wins.
French Budget Deficit Explodes Into a Major Debt Crisis and Riots
On October 7, 2026, I commented French Budget Deficit Explodes Into a Major Debt Crisis and Riots
The welfare state in France is coming unglued. An EU-wide crisis is coming.
Marine Le Pen, the far-right candidate who is leading in the polls, has vowed to push France’s age of retirement as low as 60 years old, a measure she says would cost the state an extra 9 billion euros (about $10.1 billion) a year.
Her closest rival in the polls, far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, wants the European Central Bank to freeze or wipe away the French bond holdings of the Bank of France, a sum worth 488 billion euros.
“Throw it in the fire,” Mélenchon quipped.
“Throw it in the Fire”
And they did, literally, just not in the sense Mélenchon wanted.
I suspect this seals the next French election. Support for the far Left is going to collapse.
Article posted with permission from Mish Shedlock
