Gathered in the heart of Limoges, a small city in central France, more than a hundred people gazed in shock on Sunday afternoon at what remained of their city hall.
Some stood in silence. Others took pictures of the building’s skeletal frame, still smoking from a fire that had largely destroyed it the night before.
Apart from the building’s gray stone walls, erected in the late 19th century, and a few broken windows, not much remained. Not the roof, not the clock on the facade, not even the metal bell tower that once loomed over the building.
“All we have left are pictures,” said Gilles Peignelin, 64, who was staring at the ruin alongside his wife, Sylvie, 61. They married in the building 35 years ago, they said, recalling its grand staircase and painting collection. Now, that staircase seemed to have collapsed, Mr. Peignelin noted, pointing through a shattered window.
“I’m outraged — it’s shameful, deplorable,” Ms. Peignelin added.
The damage at Limoges was among the most serious and surprising stemming from the nationwide unrest that swept across France yesterday, as huge anti-government marches gave way to rioting.
Some 2,000 people were arrested nationwide as rioters attacked government buildings and roughly 1,500 shops.
Limoges, a quiet city renowned for its porcelain and far from the unrest of Paris, is the only place that saw its city hall burn down, though a tourist office was also set on fire in Lyon.
The rallies in the city, which has roughly 130,000 residents, began relatively calmly, the authorities said. Several thousands demonstrators marched through the streets in the late morning to protest rising living costs and express solidarity with high school students calling for better school conditions.
The authorities said that rioters headed toward the city center at 5 p.m. with the “sole objective to burn, break and loot.” By 6 p.m., rioters forced their way into the city hall and set it on fire while staff and visitors were still inside, the authorities said. Despite firefighters’ swift response, the building was largely destroyed — with its burning bell tower toppling over several hours later.
“Today, the entire facade and the historic front section have been almost 100 percent destroyed,” Maurice Barate, the top official for the region, announced on national television. Mr. Barate said that firefighters had been disadvantaged by the wind, and that the city hall’s wooden roof had “collapsed onto the rest of the building.”
Listed as a historical monument, Limoges’s city hall was built by a Parisian architect, Charles-Alfred Leclerc, in the 1880s. A jewel of late-19th-century French architecture, the building featured a metal bell tower, ornate details on its facade and mosaic portraits of local figures. At the start of World War II, the monument hosted exiled Belgian lawmakers after Belgium surrendered to Nazi Germany.
Many saw the burning of the hall as a direct assault on the French state.
To attack the city hall is “to attack the Republic,” said Guillaume Guérin, the Limoges mayor, on social media on Sunday morning. Mr. Guérin, of the main conservative party, the Republicans, also accused the perpetrators of being affiliated with or manipulated by the far left and promised to hold them accountable.
The local prosecutor’s office has announced that 17 people were arrested in the city this weekend, including seven minors, though it did not clarify if they were accused of involvement in the arson.
Lino Cardona, an art student who joined the peaceful protests earlier in the day, said the atmosphere at the demonstrations turned sour as soon as the city hall attack began.
“That’s when the joyful, inclusive atmosphere disappeared,” said Ms. Cardona, 26, who lamented how the violence would now overshadow the goals of the peaceful protesters.
The attack was a powerful symbol of “the fragility of our institutions,” she added. “We now need to ask ourselves: How do we move forward?”
The Peignelins said they were shocked at how such violence could reach a city usually untouched by unrest — and they were angry at the government’s failure to prevent it.
“We didn’t expect this in Limoges, but today we realize that even a small town in France can be a hotbed of chaos,” Mr. Peignelin said.
Ms. Peignelin added: “I’m sickened by a government that does nothing. We know full well that the people who did this won’t be brought to justice.”
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu and other government leaders have pledged consequences for perpetrators across France, including by making them pay for the damage. In a message to Mr. Guérin, the mayor, that was reviewed by The New York Times, Mr. Lecornu said the state would help cover costs from the blaze and pledged to visit the city this week.
Mr. Guérin complained that the national government had done too little to prevent the fire, saying that local law enforcement “had simply run out of ammunition” by 3:30 p.m. on Saturday.
“This country is in bad shape,” Mr. Guérin said, adding, “If there isn’t a change in policy, if there isn’t a shift in direction, things are going to end very, very badly.”
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