Rioters set fire to Limoges town hall during French cost-of-living protests

Rioters set fire to the 19th-century town hall in Limoges, central France, on Saturday 17 October, during nationwide protests over fuel prices and the cost of living. The roof and clock tower collapsed and much of the building was gutted.

Maurice Barate, the local prefect, told the news channel LCI that the fire had been set deliberately by "a wild horde". Limoges mayor Guillaume Guérin said no words could condemn the attack strongly enough and that the country was in chaos.

The fire was one of the most dramatic incidents in a day of unrest. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez blamed several thousand far-left individuals who, he said, set out to attack public buildings and confront police, and who were later joined by delinquents who looted shops in several cities. Nearly 2,400 people were arrested across France and about 1,000 police officers were injured, seven of them seriously, according to the authorities.

President Emmanuel Macron condemned the violence in a national address on Sunday, saying nothing justified it and that the country felt anger and shame. He separated protesters with legitimate demands from those who looted and destroyed, and promised that those responsible would be held to account.

The protests brought together unions, the Yellow Vests movement and school students angry about living costs and prospects for young people. About 550,000 people marched nationwide, including 110,000 in Paris, according to the Interior Ministry, and most of the demonstrations were peaceful, the BBC reported.

This report was expanded and corrected on 1 November 2026. An earlier version described the building as 143 years old; the sources we reviewed describe it only as a 19th-century building, so that figure has been removed.