In France’s Limoges, the fire-ravaged town hall rekindles memories of Notre Dame

By Clotaire Achi

LIMOGES, France, Oct 18 (Reuters) – Residents in Limoges recoiled in horror on Sunday at the city’s fire-ravaged town hall, an ornate 19th century neo-Renaissance building which survived two world wars but was torched by a masked mob during the worst unrest to convulse France in years.

Stunned onlookers had watched helplessly the previous evening as the blaze tore through the roof, felling the building’s clock tower in scenes that revived haunting memories of the collapse of Notre Dame cathedral’s spire in a 2019 fire.

“It broke my heart. I saw Notre Dame all over again, except this time it was our town,” said Francoise Faurie who witnessed the fire consume Limoges’ town hall.

Faurie’s family had been due to celebrate her grand-daughter’s baptism in the town hall in a month’s time. “What kind of country are we living in? What are we leaving our children?” she said. “There’s no reason to touch that building. You can have demands, you have the right to protest, but not the right to violence.”

EXTENSIVE DAMAGE

The local prefect, Maurice Barate, said the roof had caved in onto lower floors, sparing only the west wing, and that large parts of the exterior had been destroyed.

The destruction of the building, a listed monument that opened in 1883 and was inspired by Paris’ city hall, was a “heritage catastrophe”, he said. Its central clock tower and belfry towered 43 metres (141 feet) over the square below.

“It’s inadmissible to have burned down the town hall!” one local resident, Gilbert, said. “Those who did this need to be punished. They need to pay out of their own pocket, it’s not for the state to pay.”

The town’s shaken mayor, Guillaume Guerin, described how the local police force had quickly been overwhelmed by several hundred-strong mob who he said smashed windows and used a battering ram to break down the main door.

“The logistics, the organisation, the premeditation behind yesterday’s attack on the town hall is something I find unbearable,” he told reporters.

Guerin said there had been insufficient police numbers to protect the building since officers from the national force had been deployed to the street protest.

“I had no single national police officer to protect the town hall,” the centre-right mayor continued. “This country is doing badly, this country is doing very badly, and it’s a small provincial mayor telling you so.”

Crowds gathered under blue skies as specialists surveyed the damage. Edith Lorcen, a retired nurse, expressed her shock at the malice of those behind the attack.

“I’m disgusted. I’m hurting,” Lorcen said. “But it does nothing to add hate on top of hate.”

(Reporting by Clotaire Achi; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Christina Fincher)