An intense smell of burning took over the center of Paris on Sunday. Several burnt cars, piles of burnt motorcycles and bicycles, broken shop windows everywhere, and remnants of barricades with garbage were the testimony of the battle of October 17 between riot police forces and dozens of masked individuals, who returned to the scene a day later in front of the vandalized statue of the Republic shouting "ACAB!" (acronym for "All Cops Are Bastards" in English).
New scenes of high tension, with the usual rain of tear gas, revived the worst moments on Magenta Boulevard, where more than 20 shops were looted and partially destroyed, like the Urban Bakery café, where the attackers hit the facade with blunt objects to dislodge debris and use them as projectiles against the police.
"We knew there would be violence, so we closed the café a day earlier and protected the shop windows with plywood," explained on-site employee Lilianne Prestat. "They broke in, took whatever little there was, but the worst was what they did to the facade. Apparently, they went at it with hammers until they exposed the pipes... This doesn't look like France, I have never seen savagery like this."
Over 100,000 Parisians, mostly students, marched along Magenta Boulevard in an indignant yet festive tone in the early stages of Saturday's protest. "I was about to close the store, but I managed to even greet the protesters from inside to show solidarity with their cause," recalls Jahirul Azam, owner of a Lyca Mobile store.
"But when the crowd passed, the vandals with their balaclavas and hoods arrived," he remembers. "The first thing they did was rip out the surveillance cameras, then they took around fifty computers and over 100 mobile phones, ruthlessly destroyed the counters. I estimate this has cost me at least 150,000 euros. Who is going to pay for this?"
Chanting "Tabac, Tabac, Tabac!", the café-tabac La Barrique on Beaurepaire Street was another target of the attackers, who forced open the metal shutters. "They pushed me without hesitation and injured me on the forehead," recalls manager Aline, who removes her cap to show the stitches in a video that went viral on social media. "They came with bags to fill with everything they found, especially tobacco. And not satisfied, they ended up setting the place on fire, which was beloved in the neighborhood."
The firefighters managed to extinguish the fire before it spread through the building. From the exterior window, the charred remains of counters and chairs could be seen. A few meters away, two cars were set on fire in the middle of the street. Systematic destruction, with broken shop windows and bus shelters smashed, spread to Haussman Boulevard and Sebastopol Boulevard, which woke up on Sunday with a smoldering pile of over thirty motorcycles and bicycles in the middle of the street.
Meanwhile, St. Martin and St. Dennis streets, frequented by tourists, offered a surreal image. "We never expected to see something like this in Paris," commented two Italian tourists, Gianni and Francesco, who came for the car show and found themselves trapped in the chaos in front of St. Martin's door on Saturday. "We had read about student protests and were warned, but when we started hearing the sounds of stun grenades and seeing smoke in the streets, we had to run terrified back to the hotel with red eyes from tear gas."
The Unisport store on St. Dennis Street was another preferred target. "I believe they had chosen in advance the stores they wanted to loot, and this one was obvious because of the sports shoes," claimed a worker who identified himself as Jacques on Sunday. "I had never seen so much destruction in this city, not even during the Yellow Vest protests. When I came here early this morning, with silence in the background, it was as if a tornado had passed through. I truly believe it is creating an explosive social situation, and I fear this is only the beginning."
Meanwhile, Paris Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire visited the affected shop owners between Bastille Square and Republic Square on Sunday. It is estimated that over 1,500 shops were affected by looting and pillaging on Saturday, around 400 in Paris alone. Grégoire acknowledged on-site that the assaults were "premeditated and methodical." The mayor lamented that the overwhelmed police were unable to fulfill their duty to protect citizens amidst the chaos.