After a week of race riots the likes of which haven’t been seen in France for decades, the urban violence that engulfed more than 220 towns and cities across the country has exacted a colossal human and material cost, leaving thousands of cars, buses, and trams torched, hundreds of buildings destroyed, and hundreds of law enforcement officers injured.
In a report published on Monday, June 3rd, by the Ministry of the Interior that quantified the extent of the material damage and the number of arrests that occurred in the previous six nights, it was revealed that more than 5,600 vehicles were set ablaze, some 1,300 buildings were damaged or destroyed, and more than 3,300 arrests were made across the country.
Among the buildings that were destroyed were schools, libraries, kindergartens, police precinct offices, city council buildings, residential buildings, and banks. According to the French business association MEDEF, the rioters have already caused over €1 billion worth of damage.
In the Paris region alone, the six days of rioting have resulted in some €20 million in damage to the public transport system, Île-de-France Mobilités (IDFM), a local public institution in charge of financing transport in the region, said, noting that 39 buses have been torched.
“The videos of the riots that circulated around the world hurt the image of France,” MEDEF head Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux told Le Parisien. “It’s always difficult to say if the impact will be long-lasting, but there will certainly be a drop in reservations this summer, although the season had seemed promising. Many have already been canceled.”
Meanwhile, the ministry reported that 254 attacks on law enforcement offices took place, while a total of 722 police officers were injured during the six nights of chaos. At this point, the ministry has yet not counted the tragic death of a 24-year-old firefighter as a casualty caused by the rioting.
Commenting on the 24-year-old’s tragic, untimely death, the Paris Fire Brigade (BSSP) told France Bleu Paris that there is at this stage “no link” with the urban violence that occurred overnight from Sunday to Monday. “We intervene every week, all year round, on a dozen fires of this type, we must not confuse concomitance and causality”
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin did note, however, that the 24-year-old Dorian Damelin, a master corporal for the La Courneuve rescue center, had been fighting a fire in the parking lot of an apartment building in Saint-Denis, a multicultural Parisian suburb, in the early morning hours of Monday, when he suffered a heart attack that resulted in his death.
“All my sincere and saddened condolences to his family, loved ones, comrades, and to the Paris Fire Brigade (BSPP),” Darmanin said.
