Paris riots and looting as cost-of-living anger boils over in France

How the unrest began

The violence started on Saturday, 17 October, when protests in Paris and other French cities turned into rioting, vandalism and looting. Witnesses drew a distinction between protesters and black-clad agitators who came to disrupt the day. They said police appeared to struggle when a mob swept up bystanders on the edges of the march and when looters ransacked shops. Around 3,000 businesses were reported hit. A gourmet deli owner near the Place de la Republique, who has run her shop with her sister for 46 years, said she was stunned by the rioting, which overshadowed the cost-of-living anger that had drawn people out in the first place.

A sense of being fed up

Shopkeepers and protesters described the same feeling, captured in the French term ras-le-bol, roughly a bowl filled to the brim. The deli owner said people feel abandoned and no longer know where the country is heading, and that they are tired of being treated like fools. Paris mayor Emmanuel Gregoire, a member of the centre-left Socialist Party, hosted a residents' meeting at city hall on Thursday, 22 October. One attendee after another described feeling unheard or unprotected, and many blamed national leaders for failing to fix the economy, the political debate, schools and grocery bills. Gregoire told the room:

“There is an aggregation of anger”

He added that weeks of student protests had merged with grievances from farmers and public workers, and that the anger was already forming a broad social movement.

Students, admissions and the spending debate

The protests have roots in a student movement that took hold in Seine-Saint-Denis, which reporting from Bobigny describes as the poorest department in France. Reporting from the same area put at 126,652 the number of students still waiting for a university place since July, a delay they blame on Parcoursup, the admissions software they want scrapped. Columnists disagree about the causes. One column in La Vanguardia notes that investors, worried about French public debt of 3.6 trillion euros, equal to 119% of GDP, want austerity, while protesters demand more spending on public services and schools. Other commentators argue the violence benefits Marine Le Pen six months before the presidential election, and that Jean-Luc Melenchon's La France Insoumise makes reform harder to agree in the Assembly.

Saturday march and security response

The second day of protest in Paris, on Saturday, 24 October, began with confusion over its starting point. Police blocked the Bastille square at midday and directed marchers to Place d'Italie, where the march set off. The route ran more than five kilometres to the Porte de Vincennes, in heavy rain, and lasted more than two hours. Police put the turnout at 110,000 people and unions at 250,000.

Police estimate110,000

Union estimate250,000

Police estimate

110000 people

Union estimate

250000 people

Data from the article text

The government announced more police and soldiers at several points across the city. Reports said a partial curfew had been imposed in some cities, Paris and Bordeaux among them. Volunteer medical teams, including nursing and medicine students in white vests, moved through the crowd in case of clashes with police. Shopkeepers on the affected streets were still weighing whether to repair damaged premises or wait for the next march.