Alexandre Bompard, CEO of Carrefour, said 50 of the retailer’s stores were hit during the riots that broke out across France on Saturday, Oct. 17. Nineteen of them, convenience stores and supermarkets in Paris, Rennes, Lille, Bordeaux and elsewhere, were looted and ransacked.
Bompard visited the directors of looted stores on the morning of Sunday, Oct. 18, to express the group’s solidarity, he wrote in a French-language post on X. He praised employees who were already at work that morning getting stores back in shape for customers.
Retail Sector Bears Direct Costs
“Nothing can justify such violence,” Bompard wrote. “Those who attack the work tools of courageous entrepreneurs and their teams in this way must face an uncompromising response. The Republic must protect its shopkeepers!”
He also pointed to roughly 1,500 stores belonging to other chains that suffered the same violence, and described devastated shops, deeply shocked staff and dismayed customers. Repairs at the hardest-hit Carrefour stores will take a long time, and some will stay closed for an extended period.
Dozens of employees at Carrefour’s franchise partners will be put on short-time work, Bompard said, and the repair bill will run to more than €10 million. He called for faster compensation procedures for shopkeepers, like those used after natural disasters.
Speaking to BFMTV from a ransacked convenience store in Paris’s 12th arrondissement, he described staff trapped inside stores during the attacks. “You have to imagine what it’s like when you’re in a store under siege for long minutes with your teams,” he said.
More than 500,000 people joined the Oct. 17 protests across France, according to authorities. Most marched peacefully against rising fuel prices, the cost of living and deteriorating public services, including schools, but violence broke out in many cities as masked groups looted stores, torched vehicles and clashed with police. One protester died after a cardiac arrest in Paris. The interior ministry said about 2,400 people were arrested and almost 1,000 police officers and gendarmes were injured.
In a televised address on Sunday, President Emmanuel Macron called for calm and drew a line between protesters’ “legitimate demands” and “those who destroyed, smashed and looted,” saying those involved would face justice. Economy Minister Roland Lescure said in a statement that those who break things will pay, repair the damage and be held accountable.
The Federation of Commerce and Distribution (FCD), which Bompard also chairs, put the toll at 1,500 businesses hit and damage estimated at several hundred million euros. Serge Papin was due to meet retail, artisan and restaurant federations, along with representatives of banks and insurers, at the Bercy economy ministry at 9 a.m. on Monday, Oct. 19.