IQN (NewsDesk): More than 3,000 shops and businesses were looted or damaged in France over the weekend of unrest, according to Commerce Minister Serge Papin, hitting retailers hard and pushing French authorities to confront online marketplaces over the sale of stolen goods.
Luxury and beauty stores were among the worst affected, with shops such as Sephora, Celine, Burberry and Louis Vuitton reported to have been plundered, including in Paris’s Les Halles district. Within hours, designer handbags, prestige perfumes and other luxury items began appearing on the secondhand marketplace Vinted, some listed in bulk and priced below normal retail. By Monday evening, Papin and digital minister Anne Le Hénanff had summoned Vinted, Leboncoin, Amazon, eBay, Meta and TikTok to a videoconference to demand that the listings be taken down.
Vinted said selling stolen goods is strictly prohibited and that its teams had moved to identify and remove listings linked to the looting, working with French authorities. eBay set up special checks to spot stolen items. President Emmanuel Macron warned that handlers of stolen goods will be prosecuted, with penalties of up to five years in prison and a 375,000 euro fine.
The damage is already showing up in company results. On Tuesday, grocer Carrefour cut its fiscal 2026 profit outlook, with CEO Alexandre Bompard saying around 50 of its stores were hit on the first day, many of them looted. The company estimated the hit to operating income at between 80 million and 200 million euros. The French Senate is due to begin debating a “rioters pay” bill, while shop owners boarded up windows again on Saturday as about 70,000 police were deployed for another weekend of protests.
