This is the beautiful Hotel de Ville, the town hall, in Limoges.
The consequences of destroying a public building where so many aspects of public life in the region are administered are enormous. All the records for planning applications, the payrolls, and goodness only knows what else, gone. Most of the loss will affect local people for years and it's hard to see what good it will do the cause of the protesters protesting against lack of funding for schools and colleges, shortage of teachers and other grievances.In the centre of Tours, our nearest city, dozens of shops and businesses have been ransacked and looted, then the interiors destroyed. There are videos of vandals smashing windows and leaving the H&M shop with armfuls of clothes still on hangers.
Now that the protesters have had their fun and made their point, inevitably the cost of sorting out the mess and the repairs will filter down, one way or another, to the ordinary folk.
People sometimes admire the way that the French "take to the streets" to make themselves heard; so un-British. It's one aspect of French life that makes me nervous, uncomfortable, just like in 1990 when French farmers burned alive a lorry load of lambs at Calais to protest against the import of British lamb into France. It was cruel, heartless and appalling. This is just madness.
