The Sunday stroll is a great Parisian tradition – but the morning after student protests descended into chaos, it felt more like a macabre walking tour. Many of us had the same idea. Parisians gathered at major hotspots from the night before to assess the damage with our own eyes: at Place de la République lay the remains of a burnt-out car, reduced to ash and twisted metal. The previous day, it had sent plumes of black smoke into the sky. Not far off, I stumbled into the now-windowless wine shop I had seen on social media: it had been plundered of all its stock. Outside, I studied charred debris to try to identify what the rioters had torched.
The violence and looting that broke out across France this month has left the nation shell-shocked. Rioters – known as casseurs (‘breakers’) – set cars on fire, vandalised public buildings and ransacked shops, restaurants and retailers. Videos showing fires and fighting have rapidly travelled around the world.
France is known for its robust protest culture and is accustomed to clashes between police and rioters, but the events of this month were more extreme, with the Government ultimately forced to impose partial curfews in major cities to contain the violence.
The protests began peacefully on 17 October in cities nationwide: 550,000 people took to the streets to protest the rising cost of living, the decline of public services and education inequality. At Place de la République an orchestra of 400 musicians played the theme song from The Avengers while families with young children, holding signs with rainbows and hearts, waited for the procession to start.
The day was supposed to be an extension of a student uprising that began in September. High-school students in a low-income suburb of Paris started a blockade to call out deplorable conditions in the national education system. Their concerns were reasonable: some have gone months without teachers because of staff shortages; crumbling buildings leak every time it rains; and classrooms are overcrowded, with insufficient chairs.
The protest went viral, inspiring students to share their own horror stories – rat infestations, broken toilets, collapsed ceilings – and to start more blockades, forcing the closure of hundreds of schools and mobilising law enforcement. They drew the support of university students, trade unionists and the Yellow Vests, a grassroots movement that grew from anger at the rising cost of living in 2018.
But along with a strong tradition of civil resistance, France has also earned a reputation for its violent policing methods. Clashes between police and protesters have allegedly resulted in several students being seriously hurt.
Two teenagers are said to have had their hands blown off by stun grenades in separate incidents. A 16-year-old reportedly lost an eye to a rubber bullet and a police officer is under investigation after video footage emerged of a grenade exploding in the face of a 14-year-old boy at close range. The impact broke his jaw and knocked out most of his teeth. These incidents have provoked public outrage.
In Paris, clashes quickly spun out of police control. Looters and vandals attacked shops indiscriminately, targeting both high-end and independent businesses. Marseille, Lille, Nantes and Lyon also reported looting and arson.
The most dramatic act of vandalism, however, was the torching of the city hall in Limoges, where video footage shows the clock tower collapsing in flames. The building was a listed historic monument, and many drew comparisons to the Notre-Dame Cathedral fire of 2019. It was a painful blow for a country that prides itself on heritage and its grand public buildings – town halls are at the heart of French life.
France is six months away from a presidential election in which the far-right currently leads the polls. Politicians are engaging in rounds of finger pointing : the centrist-right Macronist Government accuses Jean-Luc Mélenchon, presidential candidate and leader of the far-left party France Unbowed, of stoking violence. Rioters have been characterised as members of the ‘ultra-left’. Mélenchon has criticised the Government’s response as either incompetence or deliberate manipulation.
It’s a situation that has been exploited by politicians internationally; both Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have made comments blaming immigrants for the violence. But one French politician seems particularly likely to benefit: Marine Le Pen, leader of the anti-immigrant National Rally and presidential frontrunner. Le Pen has called for a zero-tolerance approach to restoring order.
At the time of going to press, the protests had spilled over to Albania, Italy, Belgium, Spain and Greece, where students, inspired by their French counterparts, have taken to the streets to air grievances about rising tuition fees, the high cost of living, housing crises and underfunded schools. Faced with a polycrisis that includes climate collapse, the possibility of mass unemployment and the demise of democracy, Gen Z is fighting hard for control over its future – and many will regret that their concerns have been overshadowed by violence.