80 businesses hit in Yellow vest rampage: Traders

Some 80 shops and businesses on the Champs-elysees avenue in Paris were vandalised this weekend when “Yellow vest” protesters went on the rampage, with about 20 looted or torched, retailers said on Sunday.

“There was a wave of violence, we’re dealing with the atermath of the chaos. We’re trying to reassure all the employees and then there are those who live here, too,” said Jean-noel Reinhardt, head of the Commitee Champs-elysees, a local association with 180 members, most of them businesses.

He said residents and business owners were pushing for talks with Prime Minister Edouard Philippe “to share our exasperation and explain our complaints.

“The authorities must put an end to this situation,” he insisted.

Luxury stores, restaurants and banks on the Champs-elysees assessed damage on Sunday ater they were ransacked or blackened by lifethreatening fires.

Tourists took pictures as shop owners tried to repair broken windows and city workers scrubbed away graffiti, much of it targeting Macron.

On the Champs-elysees, an eerie calm replaced the hours-long chaos of the day before on the street that Parisians call “the most beautiful avenue in the world.”

No police were visible on Sunday, and traffic rolled down cobblestones that had been the scene of batles between rioters and police struggling to contain them.

On Saturday, the police appeared overrun as protesters swarmed the area, vandalising and later seting fire to Fouquet’s brasserie, a favourite hangout of the rich and famous for the past century -- as well as luxury handbag store Longchamp.

Clothing outlets Hugo Boss, Lacoste and Celio were also damaged, as well as a bank, a chocolatier and several newsstands.

“Enough is enough. And this Saturday went too far!” raged Bernard Stalter, president of CMA France, a national network of chambers of trades and crats.

He also demanded a meeting with top ministers “this week in order to find solutions which will put an end to a situation which has become as volatile as it is unacceptable.”

President Emmanuel Macron cut short a weekend ski trip to meet on Saturday night with security officials at the crisis center overseeing the police response.