The shops are boarded; the questions remain open.

Paris has always known how to hold contradiction in its arms. The city of light and of barricades, of café terraces and of tear gas, has weathered uprisings before and will likely weather them again. But the weekend that just passed left scars that feel less like a chapter in a familiar history and more like a warning written in shattered glass.

On Monday, Paris police imposed an overnight curfew in two central areas—Place de la République, where rioting erupted Saturday, and the Les Halles shopping district, which saw extensive looting—barring entry from 11 p.m. until 6 a.m., according to CBC News . Gatherings and demonstrations were banned from 8 p.m. Curfews for minors were announced in Lille, Nice, and several other cities, with restrictions beginning as early as 8 p.m. .

The unrest followed what began as peaceful nationwide protests Saturday against rising living costs and poor conditions in schools. More than 500,000 people took to the streets, and while most marched peacefully, groups of masked individuals broke away to loot shops, set fires, and target public buildings . At least 2,400 people were arrested across France, and authorities estimated that roughly 3,000 businesses were damaged or looted . In Limoges, flames engulfed the 19th-century City Hall, causing its roof to collapse .

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez offered his resignation Sunday, acknowledging that authorities had "lost control" in some major cities. President Emmanuel Macron refused it, instructing Nuñez instead to ensure "full transparency" about failures in planning and intelligence-gathering, and to introduce new policing tactics quickly . Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, speaking Monday, noted that "despite scenes of severe violence and extensive property damage, no one was killed, and that is a miracle" .

For shopkeepers, the arithmetic of the weekend is painfully concrete. Ouri Zagoury, who owns a video game store near Place de la République, watched on surveillance cameras as looters forced their way in. "There were so many people coming in and out," he told CBC. "And even though I called the police, they said not to intervene, that they would come, but they never did" .

What began in September as a student strike over overcrowded classrooms and understaffed schools has since widened into something more diffuse—a frustration with affordability, with government inaction, with a sense that ordinary life has become harder than it should be. The riots that followed the police killing of a teenager in 2023 and the yellow vest movement of 2018 both echoed in the weekend's violence, suggesting a pattern that France has not yet found a way to interrupt .

The curfews are temporary. The anger they are meant to contain is not. A police statement said the measures aimed to protect "people and property from the violence and looting" . Whether they succeed in that narrow aim, and whether they address anything beyond it, remains to be seen.

Images accompanying this report were generated by AI.

Sources: CBC News, CNN, Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, Uganda Broadcasting Corporation, Central News Agency