French Businesses Fear Fresh Attacks As New Protests Loom

And residents and business owners in French cities are bracing themselves for more unrest this weekend. Students and leftist groups are planning further protests and many people fear there could be a repeat of last week's violence. Our Paris correspondent Lisa Louis has been talking to shop owners whose businesses have come under attack. As France was gripped by violent clashes last weekend on the sidelines of a demonstration by students yellow vests and unions groups of looters descended on shops in cities across France 3,000 stores were ransacked and plundered like this tobacco shop in Paris the events here were captured on CCTV footage all in all about 400 people came in and took everything they could find his employees prevented the rioters from entering the back part of the shop where most of the products were stored they lowered the two shutters and then had a battle with the looters they kept kicking the shutter with several of them trying to lift it my employees were on the other side with fire extinguishers they stepped on the looters hands and hit them they took furniture like this and hit them while they were on the other side this went on for 40 minutes then another employee arrived and said the police are coming and they all ran away they know that tobacco is valuable and electronic cigarette products are easy to sell they attacked 86 tobacco shops within a radius of two kilometers some shops were burned to the ground some shop owners were physically harmed shop owners are convinced the looting was meticulously planned this fashion jewelry store was ransacked at night the owners believe the The attackers scouted out the location in advance. About 15 people pushed up the shutter, smashed everything to enter the shop and took all our goods. They came with huge bags and we think there were trucks waiting at the end of the street to collect everything. Abroad, people seem to think the looting was done by protesters, but these were other opportunistic groups. I think this had been planned for months. They used this demo as a pretext to come and ransack the shops. The family had built up their business over three decades. These are extraordinary people, Iranians that have been giving it their all and achieving great things. Some business owners now ironically call what happened a shopping spree. But not every store was of interest to the looters. The looters arrived at the shop. My employee Leonard started to lower the shutter. They were about to enter the shop, but then one of them said, it's not worth it, they only sell vegetables. And more of the same seems to be planned this weekend. This post identifies shops in Marseille that have not yet been ransacked. and this user says people from Marseille will come to Paris as another weekend of protests looms the shop owners are bracing themselves for the worst i've got a locksmith coming he'll install big wooden panels like the McDonald's across the street this time we'll wait for them if they come we'll be here and then they'll get a fight they're not prepared for. One day there's going to be a tragedy for sure. Even if there's nothing left of our shop, we're afraid of what's to come. What we've seen was terrifying. Authorities are promising extra police to protect businesses, but that's not going to quell residents' anxiety over what lies ahead. And DW's Lisa Liu, who filed that report, joins us now from Paris. Lisa, can you give us an overview regarding the nationwide scale of the destruction? You mentioned 3,000 shops destroyed in your report. Well, absolutely. The protests were happening here in Paris, but also in lots of other cities across the country. And so there were cars burned, streets damaged, certain public buildings attacked. Like, for example, the town hall in Limoges that was partly burned out. They're also the tourism office in Lyon in southeastern France. And the estimates for now go into, you know, they say that hundreds of millions of euros will have to be paid to repair these damages, obviously, including also all the damages that have been done, have been made to the shops that you just mentioned. Now, the protests are not unusual in France. In recent years, we've seen many of them. But this was something else, wasn't it? Well, absolutely. I mean, in my 20 years here in Paris in France covering protests, I've never seen anything like that. Normally, you have a demonstration that starts at point A, goes to point B and by, you know, when they near point B, some people start throwing stones at the police or there are clashes between protesters or people and the police. This time around, even before the demo started, the demo started at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, clashes started at 8.30 in the morning. here in Paris, but also in other cities, such as in Marseille. It seems like some groups had actually been organising their descent on shops in different cities across the country. Also here in Paris, you had hotspots all across the city. So it was very difficult for the police to control the situation. And as you just heard in my report, a lot of shops got attacked and ransacked during that day. Now, we can clearly distinguish between criminals and legitimate protesters, but does this looting and violence discredit the demonstrators in the view of the general public? The French are very good at demonstrating, but also at understanding why it's important to protest against certain parts of public policies. So lots of people here do understand the demands made by the students, by the pupils, that initiated these protests, you know, a few weeks back by staging blockades of their schools, their high schools. And a lot of people say it's obviously deplorable that there's so much damage, but we should actually distinguish between the two things. But then there are people who say maybe we should have a break when it comes to the protests until the situation calms down. Obviously, protesters won't agree on that. they will say we need to keep on pushing so that we can get acceptable answers to our demands. Now, protecting citizens and their property is one of the key responsibilities and indeed promises of the democratic state towards the citizens. Is this becoming a true crisis of the state now? Well, it is a crisis. You know, here in France, we have presidential elections in six months' time. Many people worry about the political climate. Many people worry how divided the country is and certainly these protests over the past few weeks have further deepened divisions. Many people are either for the far right or for the far left and that is also what you can find in polls predicting what might happen in six months' time. At the same time, you have a government that doesn't have a majority and Parliament is incredibly weak and you have a financial situation that is a disaster. France will have to save tens of billions of euros next year. It has to bring down its budget deficit. So it has very little leeway to answer, to reply to these demands by the protesters. And it's really difficult to see how to find a way out of the situation, how to calm down the situation. Lisa Lewis there reporting from Paris. Thank you, Lisa.