Saturday was a beautiful day in Paris, cool with just a hint of fall in the air and a sharp, clear light. There were protests at Place de la République, a giant empty square designed with protests in mind. But the crowd was way too big for the Place, or maybe the police had already ordered them to disperse. So the streets, the big streets and the little streets both, were packed with kids in a good mood, hanging out or milling around, chatting. Some had funny signs, like the one telling President Macron to fuck his teacher, not theirs. (Macron married his high school teacher.) Everyone was having fun protesting, and it felt good. But as we headed toward the Marais, we realized that everyone was running toward us, away from the Place de la République and mostly away from the grey cloud heading our way: tear gas. That stuff really spreads, and soon our eyes were tearing and we were coughing. We took another route.
On the way home, the mood had changed. Big streets were blocked by piles of rental bikes. And fires had been set in the streets, with black smoke rising above the buildings.
Yet life went on. People were gawking and taking pictures, but oddly nobody seemed alarmed, and there were no cops or firefighters, just flames and smoke.
It was surreal.
On the next corner, the same scene.
We were happy to get home before dark. The street scene did not get better as the night went on. All night we heard sirens, and the apartment got smoky.
Yesterday morning we saw why. On every block there were smashed storefront windows.
One storefront, a block from our apartment, had a metal door pried up before the door was jimmied open and the store looted.
There was a lot of this.
On TV that night we saw gangs of looters in department stores and fancy shops and grocery stores. Cars on fire. And again last night, rioters and riot police and looters.
It all started with high school students striking for better schools with more teachers, better physical conditions, and even an improved college placement website. Polls showed that over 60% of French people supported the students. Then the labor unions, the CGT, jumped on board, as did what’s left of the anti-tax Yellow Vest movement, and it was this coalition that called for Saturday’s day of protest.
They weren’t the looters. Everyone agrees that it was opportunistic “casseurs,” breakers, who saw how spread thin the police were and picked the moment to loot and destroy. Surprisingly, nobody was killed that night in Paris. I think it would have been different in the US. The police had badly injured some high school students the week before, though, with one losing a hand, another an eye, and another with a smashed jaw.
Predictably, the Far Right is capitalizing on the unrest with a law-and-order platform. It is scary because they are already far ahead in the polls for the April election. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/19/france-far-right-protests-riots.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
That is a lot scarier to me than looters breaking windows at Hermès or Louis Vuitton.
Also scarier: men deciding to bomb the shit out of entire neighborhoods in Gaza or Lebanon or Ukraine or Tehran. Or take out an airport. Or mow down protesters in Tehran. Or choke off Cuba. And God knows what’s going on in Sudan or Yemen.
These everyday atrocities somehow seem “normal.” That’s the most shocking part: that we take these in stride.
And here in Paris nobody knows what comes next.
