He held off the barbarians at the gate.
A French video game store worker has been praised as a hero after he was filmed bravely standing up to stone-throwing rioters as they tried to loot his shop.
A viral video from over the weekend shows Pierre, a sales assistant in the southern city of Nice, confronting the mob as they tried to storm his branch of Micromania, a French video game chain.
In the clip, Pierre, wearing a black T-shirt and sweatpants, tries to shoo the looters as some pelt him with rocks amid Saturday’s unrest.
As he turns back to his store, one of the rioters cowardly kicks him in the back, knocking him to the ground to the sick delight of the jeering crowd.
“At one point, I just stepped in front to stop people from getting in, that’s all,” Pierre told the French news outlet Ici on Sunday.
He added that eventually, looters were able to rob the store.
“I think I shouldn’t have done it in the first place. It was stupid. But at the time, that’s what I did,” he said.
A French video game and cartoon store owner has his store looted in Nice. He gets attacked from behind and then has rocks thrown at him while young rioters laugh pic.twitter.com/IkSv6pb0dd
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) October 17, 2026
Pierre said he has received dozens of messages of support since Saturday’s incident, and thanked his well-wishers.
“It’s very kind of them to offer me support, to offer support to all the shopkeepers, to everyone,” he said.
More coverage of the riots plaguing France’s streets
- BBC calls France’s radical-left riots ‘mostly peaceful’ while showing cities in flames
- French rioters target Louis Vuitton, Hermes and Apple stores — as luxury brands hire their own guards
- Synagogue ransacked, Jewish businesses hit during violent French riots: ‘Can’t be a coincidence’
- French police arrest 1,800 protesters after violent clashes and looting
However, he also insisted that the violent thugs represented a minority of the hundreds of thousands who protested across France over the week.
“We mustn’t forget that this is still a minority in terms of attitude. For the rest of the procession, things went rather well. There are a few bad apples, but they’re not the majority,” Pierre said.
It comes as the French government imposed curfews in the wake of the country’s worst rioting in years.
Meanwhile, France’s President Emmanuel Macron has been slammed for fleeing the chaos at home on Monday for a three-day summit in the Gulf States as he looks to negotiate oil deals to bring down fuel prices.
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