What began as a short break in Paris for an Irish couple ended with smoke-filled skies, smashed storefronts and a tense journey across a city gripped by unrest — an experience they described as “like seeing a warzone”.
Lucas Spicer and Olivia Goldsmith travelled to the French capital from Thursday to Sunday, only to find themselves caught up in riots that flared in parts of Paris over the weekend, with shops looted and vehicles damaged.
For hours, the pair were effectively marooned on the rooftop of a major department store. When they eventually left, they had to thread their way through the disorder on foot to reach safety on the far side of the city.
Speaking to RTÉ News after returning to Ireland, Mr Spicer said the trip had been calm until Saturday afternoon.
“Thursday, we did a lot of touristy stuff. We went to the catacombs, we explored the city, it was lovely. On Friday, we went to Disneyland the whole day. But then on the Saturday, that’s when things went downhill,” he said.
Irish man films Paris unrest from rooftop
As they moved through the city, Mr Spicer said the scale of damage was striking.
“The amount of stuff that we saw when we were walking through the city of Paris… everything was pretty much vandalised.
“Especially all the high luxury shops, Louis Vuitton, Sephora, all vandalised, almost as if it was shot with paintball bullets, the windows were smashed, the roads were all blocked,” he said.
The couple were on the rooftop of Galeries Lafayette — an area normally accessible to the public — when the situation began to escalate below.
“We got up to the top and you can see the Eiffel Tower on one side, and the other side is where Montmartre is,” said Ms Goldsmith.
“When we looked towards the Eiffel Tower, there was just huge clouds of black smoke. It just kept getting bigger and bigger. We looked the opposite way and it was the same thing there, just huge clouds of smoke.
Dark clouds rose over Paris as the riots began (Pic: Lucas Spicer and Olivia Goldsmith)
“(It) was maybe 3pm when we got up to the top of Galeries Lafayette, and when we were at the top, we saw all these people at the bottom. That was just the beginning, we literally got there at the start time. We just saw more and more people coming. That’s when it got pretty bad.”
As the protest swelled, Galeries Lafayette shut its doors, with staff refusing to allow anyone to enter or leave.
“We could see from the rooftop, literally right in front of Galeries Lafayette, there was a lot of people protesting, looking up to us and flipping us off, as if we did anything at all,” said Mr Spicer.
“They were blocking roads with these e-bikes … just lying down on the roads, causing cars not to be able to drive or anything like that – purposely causing disruption.”
After roughly two hours stuck on the rooftop, the couple chose to leave the store and head in the direction of the Eiffel Tower.
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Galeries Lafayette was later breached and looted as the disorder intensified.
“(It was) lucky enough that we did actually leave Galeries Lafayette when we did,” said Mr Spicer.
“Later on that day, we were looking online and we saw Galeries Lafayette completely torn apart, the glass getting shattered and obviously getting looted completely.”
Two-hour walk through the riots
To reach the Eiffel Tower area, Mr Spicer and Ms Goldsmith had to navigate streets affected by the unrest. A journey that would normally take about 30 minutes stretched to almost two hours.
“When we were walking, trying to get to the Eiffel Tower area, we could see police trying to take debris from the road,” he said.
“We were both like, ‘should we should help them?’ because you could tell there’s not many of them and they’re one by one taking pieces apart.
“I just knew in the back of my mind if we did help them, that we would be targeted ourselves. We couldn’t take that risk to even help the police because we knew then others would be against us.
Crowds gathered outside Galeries Lafayette before it was looted (Pic: Lucas Spicer and Olivia Goldsmith)
“It was not a comfortable situation and it was very dangerous. We made it through, fortunately unharmed, but I have to say it was like seeing a warzone.”
Ms Goldsmith said fear came in waves, often when large crowds gathered.
“I was scared, but I wasn’t too scared because he (Mr Spicer) was with me the whole time and he was navigating everything. I would probably say he was more scared than I was in the sense that he wanted to make sure we were safe,” she said.
“The main times that I would get like scared or nervous would be when I would see a huge group of people because then I was thinking, ‘I don’t want to get stuck here because what if the cops show up and they start pushing people, they start throwing gas? I’m not part of this, I don’t want to be part of this group of people, I don’t want any destruction.’
“The amount of things that were destroyed, taken apart and thrown at people … People were just getting violent with one another, and I just did not agree with it.”
When they finally reached the Eiffel Tower, Ms Goldsmith said the atmosphere felt entirely different from other parts of the capital.
Businesses in Paris were looted and burned
“I’m sure all of the tourists that planned their day at the Eiffel Tower, if they didn’t check the news, they wouldn’t have known anything went on over there,” she said.
“We were going back that way anyways, because at night we were going to go up the Eiffel Tower at 10pm at night. When we got to the top, we were able to see just hundreds of cop cars all across the city.
“Lucas, at one point, saw a firework go off. Then an hour or two later, we saw videos on the news of the protesters firing fireworks at the cops. We actually saw that from the top of the Eiffel Tower.”
‘They just wanted to break things’
Reflecting on the scenes that played out across France over the weekend, both Mr Spicer and Ms Goldsmith said they found it “sad”.
“It’s actually sad to see how many family-owned small businesses got destroyed because these people just wanted to break things, just destroy anything in their path,” said Ms Goldsmith.
“And it’s not even like they were even protesting anything. They just wanted to break things.
“Protesting is fine and standing up for what you believe in is fine, but I just think the destruction was absolutely insane.
“These protesters want their money to be going to what they’re protesting (about), but then they’re breaking all this stuff. That’s where the money is going to have to go now, to fixing it.”
Fires broke out in different areas of Paris
“Paris is such a beautiful, beautiful city. It’s really, really sad seeing this actually happening right in front of us,” said Mr Spicer.
“There were bikes, e-bikes destroyed and burnt, cars burnt, shops vandalised and burnt down. I know in other parts of France there was a tourism office burnt down, coffee shops burnt down.
“These are people’s lives and livelihoods, they’re trying to feed their family and it was just unnecessary.
“The Place de la Bastille, the statue there was completely destroyed, the concrete around it was purposely broken.
“What was the point of that?” he added.
