Paris/London CNN –
Just weeks after the highly disruptive protests and strikes over pension reforms in France finally subsided, Businesses across the country are grappling with the aftermath of a week of unrest.
The unrest triggered by the deadly shooting of a teenager by a police officer last Tuesday has already caused more than a billion euros in damage, according to the French business association MEDEF.
Protesters have looted 200 shops and destroyed 300 bank branches and 250 small corner shops, a MEDEF spokesman told CNN.
The wave of unrest erupted after 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk was shot dead during a traffic stop in a Paris suburb. In the days that followed, protesters took to the streets in cities across France to express their anger at the policing of the country’s marginalized communities and to question whether race was a factor in Merzouk’s death.
According to CNN affiliate BFMTV, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday he believed the violence had passed the “peak”. In a speech to the mayors of 241 municipalities gripped by protests, Macron pledged his “complete support”.
Sebastien Salom-Gomis/AFP/Getty Images
Protesters smash a shop window during riots in Nantes, western France, June 30, 2023.
The French government is also considering ways to help businesses hardest hit by the unrest, BFMTV reported, citing Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire. It is considering canceling or deferring social security contributions and taxes, Le Maire said, adding that companies have 30 days instead of five to make an insurance claim.
According to DBRS Morningstar, a rating agency, these claims are likely to total less than the estimated €1 billion in damages, suggesting that many companies are not being fully compensated for their losses.
“We expect total insured losses from the French insurance industry to remain well below the €1 billion mark,” DBRS told Morningstar on Tuesday, noting that the French government is partially liable for some of the losses.
“Business interruption losses due to vandalism, looting and possible curfews are unlikely to be covered by the French state,” the agency added in a statement.
French firms are now bracing for more pain as tourists, frightened by images of violence and chaos across France, decide against a trip to one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations.
By the beginning of July, foreign tourists had canceled 20 to 25% of planned trips to Paris, MEDEF President Geoffroy Roux de Bezieux said in an interview with France Inter on Tuesday.
The disruption comes at a bad time for the French economy, which outperformed in the early months of this year despite months of protests and strikes as unions demanded the government abandon its plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 entire euro zone.
But activity has since stalled. Survey data released last week showed that French manufacturing fell in June for the first time this year, at the fastest pace since February 2021, as the services sector went into reverse gear and the manufacturing slowdown deepened.
— Niamh Kennedy in Dublin contributed to the coverage.