The mayor of the previously sleepy French city of Limoges has accused Emmanuel Macron’s government of having failed to properly equip police, claiming that officers ran out of ammunition as rioters stormed City Hall and set the historic building ablaze.
Limoges Mayor Guillaume Guérin of the centre-right Républicains party told broadcaster BFMTV that around 700 “ultra-left” Black Bloc rioters joined the protest on Saturday of around 5,000 intent to “destroy, smash, and kill people.”
The LR mayor detailed a level of premeditation and planning among the alleged leftist arsonists, saying that they came equipped with a battering ram weighing over 200 kilograms (440lbs), which was used to smash open the doors of City Hall. Meanwhile, the fire which engulfed the building and sensationally burned down the tower was set in the basement and spread through the cellar vents, which Mayor Guérin claimed had been “identified beforehand” as a force multiplier for the planned arson attack.
“The level of logistics, organisation, and premeditation behind yesterday’s attack on the City Hall is something I find absolutely intolerable,” he said, adding that he was “outraged by such levels of violence and hatred directed toward everything that embodies authority.”
Close up shot of the fire of the bell tower of Limoges City Hall where during the demonstration on 17 October protesters set fire to the town hall in Limoges Haute-Vienne in the Nouvelle Aquitaine region of France on 17 October, 2026. (Photo by Elise Cabane / Hans Lucas / AFP via Getty Images)
However, while the mayor has chastised the far-left, he also saved blame for the national government, saying that there was a “colossal failure on the part of state services and the leadership of our national police force.”
Mayor Guérin said that at around 3:30 pm on Saturday, “having run out of ammunition, the national police began to fall back along the boulevards” before ultimately being “overrun by groups of rioters and ‘black bloc’ agitators, joined by a number of foolish youths.” Afterwards, he said the rioters were able to reach City Hall, which at the time was guarded only by municipal police officers.
“However, the municipal police lack the equipment and the logistics to confront 400 or 500 highly determined rioters, emboldened by young people who—at least some of them—seem entirely unaware of the scale of the destruction… Our municipal police officers were powerless to stop it,” the mayor said. “For an hour, there wasn’t a single national police officer present to protect the town hall.”
Mayor Guérin said that the information about the national police officers running out of ammunition was relayed to him by “rank-and-file police officers” who were on the ground during the riots and from “directors within the national police, by territorial intelligence services, and even by the prefecture itself.”
“We are in France, in the year 2026—a country that aspires to be highly interventionist on the international stage, yet lacks the financial or logistical capacity to provide its own national police force with ammunition. It is a disgrace. I am absolutely scandalised,” he lamented.
“I am deeply pained—for the people of Limoges, and, above all, for all the French citizens who are watching us. This country is in a bad way—a very bad way. And I, a small-town mayor, am telling you this: unless there is a change in policy, unless there is a shift in gear, things are going to end very badly indeed.”
The Limoges mayor has called on the national government to fund the reconstruction of the 143-year-old City Hall building, arguing that it should receive the same effort as the reconstruction of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. He said that it would serve as a “symbol of a nation that will neither be defeated nor intimidated.”
This handout screen grab from video footage released on October 18, 2026 by the SDIS 87 (Haute Vienne region fire department) shows the destroyed Limoges city hall after being set on fire, a day after nationwide protests against the “high cost of living”. (Photo by SDIS 87 / AFP via Getty Images)
In addition to blasting the state for its lack of preparation, Mayor Guérin also accused the far-left La France Insoumise (France in Rebellion/LFI) party, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, of being “responsible” for the chaos that led to the riots on Saturday.
“These people are largely galvanised by certain political speeches from a certain presidential candidate whom everyone will have perfectly identified,” he remarked.
On Tuesday, the local Le Populaire du Centre newspaper reported that prosecutors arrested a man in Val-d’Issoire, about fifty kilometres (31 miles) from Limoges. The suspected arsonist is said to be a known far-left activist with an “S” file, meaning that he is allegedly on the government’s national security watch list. According to Le Parisien, the Anti-Terrorist Sub-Directorate (SDAT) was assigned to the case on Tuesday.
