The entrance door to the Bordeaux town hall set on fire

The images are as distressing as they are impressive. Thursday evening, the front door of the town hall of Bordeaux was burned on the sidelines of the demonstration against the pension reform. The porch of the Bordeaux city hall was ravaged by flames ten meters high, a few days before the visit of King Charles III scheduled for Tuesday. The fire, started voluntarily by demonstrators, lasted about fifteen minutes, damaging the massive wooden door of the building, before being extinguished by firefighters. “It’s the house of Bordeaux, I don’t really see the symbol behind it,” said Pierre Hurmic, EELV mayor of Bordeaux, who said he was “very shocked” in front of journalists.

According to the prefect of Gironde Etienne Guyot, present at his side, “investigations are in progress” and “a person has apparently been arrested”. “You have a number of activists who attacked street furniture” after the Bordeaux demonstration, and “who are ambushed” in the city, added the state representative.

Entry will be consolidated

The entrance to the town hall, weakened, will “be consolidated so that it works as soon as possible”, specified the mayor, while the King of England Charles III must go to Bordeaux on Tuesday within the framework of his state visit to France, his first abroad as a sovereign.

This Thursday evening, the access door to the Hôtel de Ville in Bordeaux was set on fire.
I am shocked and saddened by such an act of vandalism.
I condemn with the greatest firmness this violence which has no other meaning than to attack the common house of the people of Bordeaux.

— Pierre HURMIC (@PierreHurmic) March 23, 2023

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In Bordeaux, Thursday’s demonstration brought together between 18,000 and 110,000 people depending on the prefecture and the inter-union. For the first time since the start of the movement against the pension reform as part of a declared procession, tear gas was used on Thursday by the police against groups of masked young people throwing projectiles and setting fires at barricades. In total, seven people were arrested for throwing projectiles, arson and contempt, announced the prefecture.

On Thursday, numerous incidents erupted on the sidelines of demonstrations in France, where more than 450 people were arrested. Violent clashes erupted in Paris but also in Nantes and Lorient, where demonstrators tried to set fire to the police station and the entrance to the sub-prefecture.