Her expression captured a potent mix of fury and despair. The unnamed woman has become a viral symbol of France’s trauma, with her face digitally placed on the Mona Lisa, depictions of Les Misérables, Joan of Arc and other defining images of the nation.
She was filmed over the weekend confronting a masked group as they raided a Paris supermarket. Again and again, she shouted, “Arrêtez!” — “Stop!” — before adding, “C’est pas la cause!” or “This is not helping the cause.”
The group brushed her aside. One man yelled, “It’s feeding time,” while another urged the others to take the wine. Nearby, a frightened employee watched helplessly, mirroring the apparent inability of the French authorities to regain control after days of unrest.
When I visit the same store the following day — a Franprix branch on Rue du Faubourg du Temple — the shock of what happened is still unmistakable.
Local pensioner Annie Tyger arrives carrying two shopping bags, only to find the shop sealed behind wooden boards. Fragments of shattered reinforced glass cover the pavement. A security guard tells her the supermarket will remain closed, not only that day but for the rest of the week.
Annie immediately begins to cry. “C’est des crapules!” she says — “They’re scum!” The store manager, Kine, steps outside and tries to comfort her.
When I ask whether she knows the woman who confronted the mob, Kine says she does not know her name. “She comes in from time to time,” she explains. “It was frightening. She was very brave.”
It took considerable courage to face a masked crowd and insist that attacking a local business would not advance its cause. The more troubling question, however, is what that cause was supposed to be.
The unnamed woman was filmed trying to stop a masked group from looting a Paris supermarket over the weekend. “Arrêtez!” — “Stop!” — she repeatedly pleaded, insisting: “C’est pas la cause!”
Across Paris, e-bike collection points were littered with twisted grey frames and burned-out wheels, resembling archaeological remains left behind by a modern disaster.
One striking feature of the unrest was the use of burning bicycles. Conventional bikes are difficult to ignite, but the lithium batteries in e-bikes can catch fire with explosive intensity.
It is a question France now appears increasingly unable to answer. Protest is deeply embedded in the country’s political culture; for many French people, taking to the streets is almost as familiar as cricket is in England.
Farmers, fishermen, pensioners and other groups who believe they have been mistreated have long responded by bringing their grievances into public view through demonstrations and disruption.
That strategy often succeeds, helping to sustain a system built around generous subsidies and extensive state benefits. The result is an economy frequently portrayed as less disciplined than Britain’s, where retirement and welfare arrangements remain politically sensitive issues.
France’s history of confrontational protest helps explain why it maintains four major full-time riot-control forces: the famously tough CRS, the Gendarmerie’s mobile units, the BRAV-M motorised rapid-response teams and the newer C.I., or intervention companies.
Together, they represent more than 26,000 full-time paramilitary personnel trained for crowd control — a capability Britain does not possess on the same scale. Their equipment includes water cannon and a range of weapons described as less than lethal but capable of causing serious injury.
Despite that formidable presence, the forces struggled to stop the looting and destruction that spread across France during the weekend, marking an especially severe episode in the country’s long history of urban unrest.
The overall cost of the damage had not yet been calculated, but the number of arrests had already passed 2,000.
Nor had the tension eased two days later. In France, a night of rioting is often followed by a period of calm, but when I reached Paris on the afternoon after Saturday’s violence, clashes between protesters and police were still continuing.
Masked protesters gather beside burning bicycles during clashes at a demonstration over the cost of living and higher fuel prices near Place de la République on Saturday.
A resident looks inside a burnt out van on Rue Yves Toudic destroyed after a weekend of protests
Even in the early hours of yesterday morning, I find vanloads of CRS cops chasing masked gangs down one of the smartest streets in all of France, the Rue de Rivoli.
Much of it seems like a game. The police cannot match the speed of the runaways but are in jovial mood when I chat to one unit. One jokingly waves his shield which has a sticker saying ‘ACAB’ on it. This is an old English criminal acronym – ‘All Cops Are Bastards’ – yet it is a universal slogan, much beloved of rioters here in France.
It has been sprayed on walls and statues all over Paris this weekend. Yet here is a riot cop wearing it as a badge of honour.
There is still sporadic looting going on. I walk past an optician’s showroom by Rambuteau Metro station which has just been raided. Branded glasses and sunglasses are prime targets, it transpires, as they are light and easily sold on.
Further on, the police chase another hooded gang into a Metro entrance at Les Halles, the largest station on the network.
Rather than pursue them into this warren, one policeman simply lobs a tear-gas grenade down the stairs after them, and a cloud of smoke wafts back up.
There is considerable confusion between the various branches of the police. One lot wave you down a particular street; moments later another lot tell you to go the other way.
Come daylight, the situation is no clearer. Part of the reason that police control broke down over the weekend is that no one can agree on who is protesting about what.
A woman walks past a Lancel store that was vandalised during protests – the graffiti on the store window reads ‘death to capitalism’
‘Eat the rich’ seen spray painted over a bus stop in Paris
Big student protests have been happening for several weeks, ostensibly because of poor school facilities. The students were out again all over France on Saturday, joined by the massed ranks of ‘France Unbowed’, the far-Left disciples of Jeremy Corbyn soundalike, Jean-Luc Melenchon, who is gearing up for next year’s presidential election.
Both groups share a number of grievances, not least the ‘cost-of-living crisis’ and Gaza. The same day saw a resurgence of the Gilets Jaunes movement, a working-class uprising against fuel prices and ‘austerity’ which repeatedly brought France to a standstill between 2018 and 2020.
Now it appears to have reawoken over diesel price hikes. Lumped together, all of the above amounted to what commentators have called ‘a perfect storm’ of protest this weekend.
And while Saturday’s initial marches proved to be peaceful, more sinister elements were waiting to take things further.
Starting with the occasional projectile hurled at the cops, these encounters inevitably escalated into running battles all over France.
The police used baton charges and tear gas while the rioters’ main tactic was to set fire to bins, booths and barricades.
One interesting sub-plot to these riots, incidentally, is a new tool: the burning bicycle. Ordinary bikes don’t catch fire, of course, but an e-bike can go up like a firework courtesy of its lithium battery.
All over Paris yesterday, at every e-bike collection point, I found clumps of gnarled grey cycle frames and charred wheels piled up like artefacts from Pompeii. British cops, take note.
And with the police preoccupied, of course, next came the looting. Again, this was something entirely beyond the norm – in terms of both scale and location.
It was nationwide and, in each city, it was not confined to the banlieues, the outlying troublespots populated disproportionately by ethnic minorities and the poor. Here in Paris, the looting was right in the heart of the most prosperous shopping districts.
An entire branch of Hermes lay pillaged, its trademark orange bags and boxes scattered down the street. Chanel and Christian Dior received the same treatment. A mob ran wild in Galeries Lafayette, the Parisian answer to Selfridges or Harrods. An estimated 1,500 stores across France were plundered.
Yesterday, business was brisk on clothing websites such as Vinted as customers noticed a rush of good-as-new top brands on sale in France (plenty of choice – surprise, surprise – for fans of Hermes).
Anyone tempted to scoop up a job lot of Yves Saint-Laurent nail polish at €2.54 (£2.14) a pot might first wonder whether they are likely to receive what they pay for from a brazen criminal, not to mention the ethics of buying stolen goods.
Here, though, we come across an alarming lack of basic decency – both on social media and on the streets. ‘It’s only taking from the very rich,’ is a popular sentiment.
In other words, all this amounts to victimless crime.
In the Place de la Republique, one of the capital’s main demonstration points, the famous statue of Marianne (the personification of France) is defaced from head to toe in graffiti.
The base of her pedestal has been smashed with sledgehammers to produce projectiles for throwing at the neighbouring military barracks. Two days on, no attempt has been made to remove a huge yellow vest draped over Marianne proclaiming (in French): ‘The Police Mutilate Schoolchildren’.
Here I meet Celian, 21, a fourth-year Paris University journalism student of African-Italian heritage. A calm, intelligent man, he argues that most of the weekend’s violence is acceptable.
‘The police are perpetuating physical violence against us and the wealth distribution is not fair. So, yes, this is legitimate. Whether as students or as workers, we try to talk with the government by legal and fair ways, but the government doesn’t talk or listen.’
Does that justify ransacking a shoe shop? ‘Those people who do that are just opportunists, not part of our movement. I don’t think people should invade small shops run by people with no connection to capitalism. But if people attack Starbucks or Nike, then that is a political statement because of their connection to Israel.’
He heard President Macron’s televised appeal for calm and orderly debate but he rejects it. ‘What we have learned from the Gilets Jaunes is that you must always keep moving. Never stay in the same place so the police cannot contain you. As Jean-Luc Melenchon says, we should “be like water”.’
The Left-wing leader himself has distanced himself from the thieving, saying ‘those who share our movement have no business in looting’. He fiercely rejects the government’s claims that his lot are to blame: ‘The real culprits are in government, unable to ensure both public order and the right to protest.’
All over Paris, there are two sounds: police sirens and the drills of the repair teams boarding up smashed windows. It will be months before the glaziers can replace all the glass.
The Lego store at Les Halles – France’s biggest shopping mall – is already a wall of panneaux (wooden panels). The front of Adidas and Nike are following suit when I walk by.
Another video was going viral yesterday, that of an elderly optician called Madame Ye, who moved from China to France years ago and raised a family here. She had closed early on Saturday, pulled down the shutters and gone home but, to her horror, could see marauders smashing their way in to the small shop on the Boulevard de Magenta. She rushed back.
A TikTok video captures her in shock leaving with the last tray of glasses. What it does not show is that, moments later, even these were snatched off her by masked men.
I meet her son, William, 28, a newly qualified optician, and his sisters, Vanessa and Lea. The latter is in tears as they survey the wreckage.
‘It is our only shop,’ says William. ‘All the family savings went into this. We’ve only been open a year. Our insurance won’t cover this. I don’t know what we do now.’
Family friend Zinadine Aidel, 27, is beyond furious. ‘These are the small businesses who pay the benefits of these casseurs [looters],’ he tells me.
Donald Trump has blamed this carnage on ‘immigrants’ but he is wrong. The protesters are from all faiths and backgrounds.
Most of the looters are, indeed, from ethnic minorities but they are certainly not the asylum-seeking small-boat crowd heading for Britain.
They are French-born, French-speaking French nationals: the children of second or third-generation migrants who came to build a better life here. And they are not going away.
Back in Les Halles, I meet Gabriel, manager of the Levi’s jeans store. Having wisely had his windows boarded up before Saturday’s chaos, his shop was unscathed, although it hardly looks very inviting.
When will he take the panels down? ‘Oh, not yet. We have more protests in two weeks. They will be worse.’
The same marches are now scheduled all over again for the end of the month.
For the whole of France, Halloween has suddenly become very much scarier.
