<center><h1>France on Fire</h1><h2>Rebel News is on the ground in Paris</h2></center>

France on Fire
Rebel News is on the ground in Paris

Rebel News sent Alexa Lavoie and her videographer, Guillaume Roy, to France, where weeks of rioting have gutted a city hall, injured nearly a thousand police officers and left a Paris synagogue ransacked — and where the headlines still call it a "student protest." On Saturday, October 24, they were in the streets of Paris for the mob's "Act Two," from the first march to the last tear-gas canister. The raw footage is above.

What we saw on Saturday

The government mobilized nearly 70,000 police officers for the day. Armoured vehicles stood near the Élysée Palace in the morning, and police cleared Place de la Bastille and pushed the crowd toward Place d'Italie. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the far-left party La France Insoumise, marched at the front behind a banner that read "Avec la jeunesse," while the crowd behind him chanted "ACAB." At Porte de Bercy, bottles flew at the riot police and a water cannon opened up. Alexa watched men break paving stones into pieces small enough to throw, and filmed masked men in black ramming the windows of an Audi dealership. She took a lot of tear gas, and she and Guillaume made it back to their hotel safe that night. Their full report, with the interviews they did on the street, is coming next.

What happened on October 17

The protests started in late September as high-school blockades over crowded classrooms and missing teachers. On Saturday, October 17, the students were joined by the unions and the Yellow Vests, and somewhere between 550,000 and 800,000 people took to the streets. By Monday, France's Interior Ministry had counted 2,397 arrests and 997 injured police officers and gendarmes. In Limoges, the 19th-century city hall was set alight on purpose, according to the prefect, and burned until the roof fell in. Marseille's chamber of commerce counted more than 600 damaged businesses, double the toll of the 2023 riots.

A synagogue ransacked, Jewish shops burned

Overnight Saturday, the Ohalei Yaakov synagogue in the 19th arrondissement of Paris was broken into. Members arrived Sunday to find prayer books and tefillin on the floor and the rabbi's office turned over. In Marseille, Jewish-owned shops were among those burned. A French television journalist, Paul Amar, said on air that the looters came with the addresses of Jewish shop owners and passed over the Muslim-owned ones. The SPCJ, which guards France's synagogues, says the motive behind the break-in hasn't been established. French Jews were being told by email to leave the kippah at home, go straight home after services and skip afternoon prayers altogether.

Palestinian flags and keffiyehs appear in nearly every photo from the riots, and Alexa saw them again in the crowd on Saturday. In Lyon, "Free Palestine" was sprayed next to the smashed windows of looted shops. Greta Thunberg turned up in a keffiyeh. The mayor of Saint-Denis, a member of Mélenchon's La France Insoumise, told a reporter that "violence can be legitimate," and prosecutors are now investigating him.

What the media is calling it

The official story has barely moved. Wikipedia files all of it under "2026 French student protests." Al Jazeera's report calls the movement "student-led," says the "vast majority" were peaceful and never mentions the synagogue. President Macron separated the protesters' "legitimate demands" from the looters, then refused his interior minister's resignation. The government blames "radical far-left groups."

Why Canadians should watch

In Toronto, Jews are under four per cent of the population and were the target of 82 per cent of religiously motivated hate crimes last year, according to Toronto police. France is a few minutes ahead of us.

Rebel News has been here before

In July 2023, Ezra Levant and Efron Monsanto flew to Marseille during the riots that cost France a billion euros, while the North American media virtually ignored them. In July 2024, Alexa was in Paris for the run-off election, filmed the riots that followed the left's win, and walked the 18th arrondissement to show what mass migration had done to it.

Why we sent Alexa

Alexa is Rebel's Montreal correspondent. She speaks French, and she has reported from the streets of Paris, London, New York and the trucker blockades in Ireland. Last November her cameraman, Guillaume Roy, was attacked by a masked Antifa thug at a Montreal protest and needed four stitches. That is why this trip includes security, and why it costs more than the last one.

Every report from France is posted at the bottom of this page as it is filed.

Help us fund this mission

Unlike the CBC and other government-funded media, Rebel News relies entirely on the support of our viewers. Economy flights, a modest hotel and a security detail will cost us at least $5,000. If you would rather hear what is happening in France from a reporter on the street than from a newsroom that still calls it a student protest, please chip in below.