LIMOGES, France
\nResidents in Limoges recoiled in horror on Sunday at the city\u2019s fire-ravaged town \u200bhall, an ornate 19th century neo-Renaissance building which survived two world wars but was torched \u200cby a masked mob during the worst unrest to convulse France in years.
\nStunned onlookers had watched helplessly the previous evening as the blaze tore through the roof, felling the building\u2019s clock tower in scenes that revived haunting memories of the collapse of Notre Dame \u200bcathedral\u2019s spire in a 2019 fire.
\n\u201cIt broke my heart. I saw Notre Dame all over again, \u200bexcept this time it was our town,\u201d said Francoise Faurie who witnessed the fire consume Limoges\u2019 town hall.
\nFaurie\u2019s family had been due to celebrate her grand-daughter\u2019s baptism in the town hall in \u200ba month\u2019s time. \u201cWhat kind of country are we living in? What are we leaving our children?\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s no \u200breason to touch that building. You can have demands, you have the right to protest, but not the right to violence.\u201d<\/p>\n
EXTENSIVE DAMAGE
\nThe local prefect, Maurice Barate, said the roof had caved in onto lower floors, sparing only the west wing, and that large \u200bparts of the exterior had been destroyed.
\nThe destruction of the building, a listed monument that opened in 1883 \u200band was inspired by Paris\u2019 city hall, was a \u201cheritage catastrophe\u201d, he said. Its central clock tower and belfry towered 43 metres (141 \u200cfeet) over the square below.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s inadmissible to have burned down the town hall!\u201d one local resident, Gilbert, said. \u201cThose who did this need to be punished. They need to pay out of their own pocket, it\u2019s not for the state to pay.\u201d
\nThe town\u2019s shaken mayor, Guillaume Guerin, described how the local police force had quickly been overwhelmed by several \u200bhundred-strong mob who he said \u200bsmashed windows and used a battering ram to break down the main door.
\n\u201cThe logistics, the organisation, the premeditation behind yesterday\u2019s attack on the town hall is something I find unbearable,\u201d he told \u200breporters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LIMOGES, France Residents in Limoges recoiled in horror on Sunday at the city\u2019s fire-ravaged town \u200bhall, an ornate 19th century neo-Renaissance building which survived two world wars but was torched \u200cby a masked mob during the worst unrest to convulse France in years. Stunned onlookers had watched helplessly the previous evening as the blaze tore …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":104527,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104509"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104535,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104509\/revisions\/104535"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}