A historic French city hall that survived two world wars has been destroyed by youth rioters, as part of a wave of unrest, much of it involving young people from migration backgrounds, sweeping across President Emmanuel Macron’s France. The destruction comes amid nationwide violence that has left thousands of businesses damaged, thousands of rioters arrested, and many police officers injured.

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The 143-year-old city hall in Limoges, central France, was set ablaze by a masked mob on Saturday, October 17, during demonstrations over rising living costs and deteriorating public services. Rioters smashed windows and forced their way into the historic building before setting it on fire. Flames consumed much of the roof, while the building’s iconic 141-foot clock tower collapsed.

Residents compared the destruction to the devastating 2019 fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, which shocked the entire world. Local officials described the destruction as a heritage catastrophe, while Limoges Mayor Guillaume Guérin criticized the lack of police protection, claiming officers had been diverted to deal with demonstrations elsewhere in the city.

France: The bell tower of Limoges City Hall has collapsed after a massive fire engulfed the historic building during protests.

The landmark, inaugurated in 1883, was more than 140 years old. https://t.co/7F4OO6tIiD

— Clash Report (@clashreport) October 17, 2026

A Historic French Landmark Reduced to Ruins.

Limoges City Hall was inaugurated on July 14, 1883, deliberately coinciding with Bastille Day, the French national holiday commemorating the French Revolution. Designed by architect Charles-Alfred Leclerc, the neo-Renaissance building was inspired by Paris’s Hôtel de Ville and was an example of the architecture of France’s Third Republic.

Its elaborate stone facade, huge staircase, decorative interiors, and towering central belfry made it one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks. The building received historic monument protection in 1975 and served generations of residents as the city’s center of government.

Remarkably, the building survived both world wars due to its location in France’s midwest, far from the battlefields of Flanders of 1916 and the Nazi blitzkrieg in 1940. However, mass migration and far-left violence proved to be phenomena that it could not survive.

Thousands Arrested as France Descends Into Rioting.

The destruction in Limoges was part of a much wider outbreak of violence that engulfed major French cities, including Paris, Marseille, Lyon, and Bordeaux. Around 2,400 people were arrested during the weekend’s unrest, while thousands of businesses suffered damage or looting. More than 3,000 shops were damaged nationwide.

French newspaper Le Monde reported that Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu had confirmed 150 injured police officers, but that was an early estimate, and the true number is likely higher. Rioters themselves also suffered serious injuries, including injuries from French police riot-control weapons.

In Marseille, rioters briefly breached the city hall, while the residence of the prefect in Bordeaux was damaged. Groups of rioters also approached within approximately 300 meters of the Élysée Palace, the French president’s official residence.

France’s Long History of Riot-Related Destruction.

The burning of Limoges City Hall is not the first occasion on which rioting has threatened France’s historic buildings and public institutions. During the 2018 Yellow Vest protests, far-left agitators vandalized the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, one of France’s most recognizable national monuments.

The 2023 riots following the police shooting of migrant-background teenager Nahel Merzouk were even more destructive. According to an official French Senate investigation, those disturbances resulted in 2,508 buildings being burned or damaged, including 105 town halls, 243 educational establishments, and 273 police or gendarmerie (paramilitary police) buildings. Rioters also burned 12,031 vehicles and vandalized or looted more than 1,000 businesses. The Senate estimated the total property damage at nearly €1 billion ($1.12 billion), with insurers recording €793 million ($889 million) in claims.

Among the cultural losses was the Jean-Macé Library in Metz, which was burned to the ground during the violence, destroying a significant collection of books and other materials.

Macron’s Repeated Failure Is Destroying France.

While President Macron has condemned the latest violence, blaming radical far-left groups and opportunistic criminals for exploiting demonstrations originally organized around education and living standards, he has done little to contain it. Some analysts have questioned whether organized extremists alone can explain the scale of the disorder, with some noting the broad leftist networks involved, many of which go well beyond France itself.

The French government has responded with additional policing and localized restrictions, including overnight curfews in parts of Paris. For Limoges, however, the consequences of the violence are already irreversible. A landmark that stood through two world wars is largely destroyed, with taxpayers expected to foot the bill for an expensive reconstruction or demolition.

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Britain’s Labour government is allowing thousands of migrants to secure de facto permanent residency every week by delaying promised immigration restrictions. Many are entered Britain as part of the Boriswave, a mass influx engineered by the former Conservative government following the COVID-19 pandemic.

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More than 200,000 legal migrants have reportedly received indefinite leave to remain (ILR) despite tougher settlement requirements being promised last year. Around 5,000 migrants are reportedly securing permanent settlement every week under existing arrangements, even as government ministers debate extending the standard qualifying period from five to ten years.

The Conservatives created the conditions for the surge in settlement by dramatically relaxing controls on legal immigration, disregarding their repeated pledges to substantially reduce it. Labour, despite promising to tighten the rules, has failed to implement reforms that could prevent hundreds of thousands of Boriswave arrivals from becoming de facto permanent residents.

The Tories Own the Boriswave.

Boris Johnson’s government introduced a new points-based immigration system in December 2020, supposedly to restore British control over immigration following Brexit. Instead, the Conservatives greatly expanded eligibility for foreign workers outside of the EU, lowered skills requirements for sponsored employment, uncapped student and work visas, and opened additional routes for lower-paid care workers and their dependants.

According to the Home Office’s own assessment of the settlement system, approximately 616,000 people entered Britain through the Health and Care visa route alone between 2022 and 2024, most of them dependants rather than the workers the scheme was supposedly designed to attract.

The Conservatives also expanded the “skilled” worker routes to occupations below graduate level. By the year ending June 2024, 53 percent of Skilled Worker visas issued to main applicants were for jobs below graduate-level skill requirements.

Brexit had been sold to voters as an opportunity to restore national control over Britain’s borders, including by Johnson himself. Instead, while Conservative ministers ended European “free movement” immigration, they introduced an uncapped points system that facilitated record levels of arrivals from outside the European Union, far larger than the decrease in EU immigration.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) subsequently revised its estimates of net migration, placing the peak at approximately 944,000 in the year ending March 2023.

Up to 2.2 Million Migrants Could Settle by 2030.

The Home Office’s official settlement forecasts estimate that between 1.3 million and 2.2 million migrants could obtain Indefinite Leave to Remain between 2026 and 2030 under projected settlement patterns. The department expects settlement grants to peak in 2028, when approximately 450,000 people could receive ILR. That would represent an average of more than 8,600 grants per week, nearly doubling the approximately 5,000 being reported now.

Much of the increase can be traced directly to decisions taken by Conservative ministers. The Home Office forecasts that approximately 462,000 people who originally entered through the Health and Care visa route could obtain ILR between 2026 and 2030. Another 306,000 are projected to settle after arriving through other Skilled Worker routes.

In 2028 alone, the department expects approximately 210,000 settlement grants to people who originally entered through the Health and Care route. The forecasts also include “family reunion” chaim migration, Hong Kong British National (Overseas) visa holders, and others.

Labour’s Promised Crackdown Appears to Be a Mirage.

Labour initially proposed doubling the standard qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain from five to ten years as part of its immigration reforms. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood outlined a more extensive system of earned settlement, under which applicants would have to demonstrate economic contribution, integration, and compliance with immigration requirements.

The government’s November 2025 consultation also proposed a 15-year qualifying period for certain lower-skilled workers, alongside longer periods for applicants whose circumstances trigger additional requirements. Mahmood has also proposed applying the changes to migrants already living in Britain who had not yet obtained ILR.

However, the proposal provoked opposition within Labour, with many Members of Parliament (MPs) lobbying against retrospectively changing the conditions for millions of foreign workers who are already in Britain. Open borders proponents and others say that migrants who arrived legally under the Conservative government’s rules should not have their settlement expectations overturned after years of residence.

The consultation closed in February 2026, but the central reforms remained unresolved as of October 19. Meanwhile, the settlement pipeline established by Johnson and his Conservative successors continues to operate.

The Long-Term Cost of the Conservative Immigration Experiment.

Permanent settlement does not automatically grant every recipient welfare payments, but it generally removes the immigration restrictions that prevent many temporary visa holders from accessing many public funds. ILR holders can become eligible for Universal Credit, social housing, and other benefits. They can also generally apply for British citizenship after meeting additional residence and eligibility requirements.

This raises questions about the long-term fiscal consequences of the Conservatives’ decision to expand immigration through low-paid employment routes. A Home Office fiscal assessment of care workers and their adult dependants examines how earnings, tax contributions, public services, and welfare expenditure affect the lifetime fiscal impact of this category of migration.

Meanwhile, government figures reported in September showed that households containing at least one foreign national received approximately £11.9 billion ($15.86 billion) in Universal Credit during 2025, up from £9.5 billion ($12.66 billion) in 2024.

Labour’s proposed restrictions would delay settlement for many applicants, potentially postponing their access to certain benefits. However, the final fiscal impact will depend on which migrants are covered, what transitional arrangements are introduced, and how settlement affects their employment and tax contributions.

Britain’s Immigration Crisis Is a Failure of the Entire Establishment.

Labour’s hesitation over settlement reform presents an opportunity for Nigel Farage and his Reform UK party, but the Boriswave is fundamentally a legacy of the Conservative government. Their post-Brexit immigration system admitted unprecedented numbers of foreign nationals, many on pathways that could eventually lead to indefinite leave to remain.

Labour inherited that system and has now spent months debating how to change it, while thousands continue securing settlement under the existing rules.

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European leaders are increasingly divided over mass immigration amnesties, with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen leading the latest backlash against Spain’s decision to legalize hundreds of thousands of illegals.

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The confrontation erupted during an October 16 European Union summit in Brussels, where Frederiksen called on the European Commission to investigate the consequences of Spanish Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s illegal alien regularization program. The Danish leader accused Spain of pursuing policies fundamentally at odds with the direction of most European governments, warning that national immigration decisions could have consequences far beyond their own borders.

The dispute exposes a growing contradiction at the heart of the European project, with many asking how the free movement of people within the bloc can survive if single states can grant access to hundreds of thousands of foreigners all on their own.

Spain Versus the Rest of Europe.

Spain’s Socialist government has defended its mass regularization program as a means of bringing illegal immigrants into the legal workforce. However, the initiative has drawn sharp criticism from governments pursuing increasingly restrictive immigration policies.

Meloni’s government in Italy has prioritized reducing illegal crossings in the Mediterranean, negotiating agreements with North African countries, and developing migrant-processing facilities in Albania. Denmark, meanwhile, has emerged as one of Europe’s most restrictive countries on asylum despite being governed by Frederiksen’s center-left Social Democrats. Her government has emphasized deportations, strictly temporary protection, and discouraging asylum seekers from settling in the country permanently.

Germany has also reluctantly shifted toward tougher enforcement under Chancellor Friedrich Merz, with his government supporting stricter border controls and faster removals, largely to counteract the rise of the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD).

The political realignment was particularly evident at Friday’s summit, where 18 European governments gathered to discuss tougher migration measures, including potential restrictions on asylum procedures during emergencies.

Schengen: One Country’s Decision, Everyone’s Problem.

At the center of the controversy is the European Union’s Schengen system, which allows travel across most EU countries without internal border checks. Under Schengen’s common rules, non-EU nationals holding valid residence permits from participating countries can generally travel throughout the area for up to 90 days within a 180-day period. Migrants granted citizenship by one EU member acquire EU citizenship, with full free movement rights across the bloc.

Residence permits do not automatically authorize employment or permanent settlement in another member state. Nevertheless, critics argue that granting legal status to large numbers of previously illegal immigrants creates additional opportunities for movement throughout Europe.

The problem has become especially contentious following the migration crisis in Spain’s North African exclave of Ceuta, where tens of thousands of migrants crossed from Morocco in July. Italy subsequently suspended aspects of Schengen travel arrangements with Spain, citing security concerns. Madrid complained that the restrictions were unjustified.

Europe’s Border Crisis Began Long Before Spain’s Amnesty.

Europe has struggled to develop a common immigration policy since the 2015 migrant crisis, when more than a million migrants entered the continent, particularly through Greece and Italy, at the instigation of Germany. The crisis overwhelmed asylum systems, exposed disagreements over responsibility for arrivals, and contributed to the rise of anti-mass migration populist parties across Europe.

Migration pressures have since shifted between routes through the Mediterranean, the Balkans, and Spain. Unauthorized migration, people-smuggling networks, and difficulties returning rejected asylum applicants remain persistent.

Brussels Struggles to Find a Common Solution.

The EU attempted to address these longstanding problems through its Pact on Migration and Asylum, which entered into application in June 2026. The reforms introduced common screening procedures, strengthened identity and security checks, accelerated certain asylum decisions, and established mechanisms for sharing responsibility between member states.

Disagreements remain, however, over deportation centers in third countries, asylum restrictions, and the consequences of national regularization programs.

Denmark, Italy, and Poland have pushed for greater coordination when one government’s immigration decisions could affect its neighbors. Supporters of tougher policies argue that mass amnesties risk encouraging further illegal migration.

The European Union is now asking itself how its system can survive, so long as a single nation state can allow in hundreds of thousands of illegals, without consultation from other members, and give them a path to EU citizenship.

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Kevin Hollinrake, the Conservative Party chairman under Kemi Badenoch and Member of Parliament (MP) for Thirsk and Malton, presents himself as a plain-speaking Yorkshire businessman-turned-politician. Yet the liberal “Conservative,” who opposed Brexit and has described himself as “very supportive of the push to get to net zero… as soon as possible,” has displayed a pattern of poor judgment and awkward defenses of questionable behavior, from claiming living expenses from the taxpayer as a landlord with multiple properties, to receiving hospitality from asylum housing developers and taking an aggressive stance against miscarriage of justice victims while he was a government minister responsible for the scandal-hit Post Office.

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The Expenses Double-Dip: Claiming Rent While Renting Out Properties.

In April 2021, The Observer identified Hollinrake among 42 Conservative MPs who claimed their own rent on expenses while renting out other residential properties for at least £10,000 a year. Hollinrake claimed £2,925 each month from April to November 2020 for London accommodation while owning a share of five different rental properties in York.⁠

A local reader’s letter in the Gazette & Herald highlighted the contrast: Hollinrake topping expenses tables (over £88,000 in one earlier period), receiving a directorship income of around £59,000 plus rental income on top of his MP salary, while the average salary in his area was far lower. The letter noted he had voted to freeze local housing allowance for private tenants on low incomes.⁠

Hollinrake’s response was that it was not reasonable to expect him to cover his own London accommodation costs.⁠ Parliamentary registers continue to list his residential property interests in York with rental income.⁠

Shares in a Company Opposed to Renters’ Reform.

As Shadow Housing Secretary, Hollinrake faced pressure to recuse himself from debates on the Renters (Reform) Bill, later the Renters’ Rights Act. He holds shareholdings valued at more than £70,000 in the Property Franchise Group plc, an estate agency franchising group that has lobbied on regulatory reforms, including against increased renters’ rights. He also has a significant stake in Habitats Online Ltd (lettings and estate agency services) and remains a portfolio landlord with shares in multiple York properties.⁠

Hollinrake insists that his interests are properly declared. He did not recuse himself from leading opposition to the legislation.⁠

Hospitality from a Developer of HMOs for Asylum Seekers.

In 2025, as Conservative Party chairman (and previously Shadow Housing Secretary), Hollinrake accepted roughly £2,000 in hospitality—flights, hotel, and dinner for himself and a family member—from Living Redefined to attend a property conference in the south of France. The company has promoted converting family homes into houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) for the controversial asylum accommodation market, claiming close work with the Home Office and high returns, for instance, turning a two-bed house into a five-bed HMO for a claimed 32 percent return on investment.⁠

Living Redefined later said it matches landlords with social housing providers and does not hold direct Home Office contracts. Hollinrake previously opposed a large asylum reception center in his constituency.

I think we’re going to start a new theme on @TheNatPulse today.

It’s going to be called #SleazeWatch, and document all the things about politicians that the mainstream media won’t report, no longer mention, or have swept under the rug.

I think we’ll start with @kevinhollinrake! https://t.co/ze7GKDLRDb

— Raheem J. Kassam (@RaheemKassam) October 19, 2026

Defending the Donor Accused of Racist Remarks.

In March 2024, as Post Office minister, Hollinrake defended the party’s decision to retain millions from major donor Frank Hester after reports that Hester said seeing Labour lawmaker Diane Abbott on television made him “want to hate all black women” and that “she should be shot.” Hester later apologized for being “rude.”⁠

Hollinrake told broadcasters the comments were clearly racist and wrong, but he did not believe Hester himself was a racist. He said the party was content to spend the money and would take another £10 million “on the basis that we don’t believe Mr Hester is a racist.” The party later accepted further donations from Hester.⁠

APPG Resignation.

In 2016, Hollinrake resigned as vice-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Unconventional Oil and Gas after constituents raised concerns that it was almost entirely funded by companies with fracking interests. His constituency was the focus of Third Energy’s shale gas plans. He claimed the funding would not influence views but resigned “to make sure that my impartiality is not called into question.”⁠

Horizon Inquiry Apology.

As Post Office minister from October 2022 to July 2024, Hollinrake was responsible for government oversight of the Post Office during the fallout from the Horizon IT scandal—one of the largest miscarriages of justice in British history. Between 1999 and 2015, faulty accounting software supplied by Fujitsu (known as Horizon) made it appear that money was missing from more than 900 Post Office branches. Hundreds of sub-postmasters were prosecuted for theft, fraud, or false accounting; many were convicted, bankrupted, imprisoned, or took their own lives.

The Post Office long maintained the system was reliable and that the shortfalls were caused by the postmasters themselve, but a 2019 High Court judgment and subsequent investigations established that Horizon was defective and that the Post Office had suppressed evidence of bugs and errors.

An official statutory inquiry (the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry) was established to examine how the scandal occurred, the role of senior Post Office executives and government ministers, and the handling of compensation for victims. When Hollinrake appeared before the inquiry in November 2024, chairman Sir Wyn Williams pressed him on the government’s and Post Office’s decision to take an adversarial, lawyer-heavy approach to processing compensation claims. Hollinrake apologised, stating that claims had not been settled quickly enough and that “arming themselves with lawyers” was “one of the mistakes I made.” He claimed that if he had his time again, he would have done things differently.

Standards Investigation.

In 2026, Hollinrake, by then party chairman, was investigated under Rule 14 of the MPs’ Code of Conduct for allegedly lobbying the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards inappropriately. Hollinrake had previously referred Nigel Farage to the Commissioner over supposed paperwork filing issues, and was accused of seeking to influence the Commissioner’s decision. An interim report claims Hollinrake did not lobby the Commissioner, although a full report into his actions is currently being withheld from the public, pending the resolution of the Farage case.

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One of Britain’s largest trade unions, which is a major funder and founder of the left-wing Labour Party, is demanding that employers train British workers before importing foreign labor, in a potentially significant challenge to the country’s longstanding reliance on mass immigration.

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Gary Smith, general secretary of the GMB union, has called for restrictions on companies sponsoring overseas workers unless they can demonstrate substantial investment in training the domestic workforce. Smith singled out Britain’s shipbuilding industry, where major defense contractors, including BAE Systems and Babcock, have recruited hundreds of migrant workers from countries such as the Philippines and South Africa to do jobs as welders, electricians, and fitters.

Although Smith says he supports immigration in principle, he argues that employers should not be allowed to use foreign recruitment as an alternative to paying competitive wages and developing British talent.

Britain Imports Workers While Domestic Training Falls Behind.

According to research, nearly three million foreign workers joined the British workforce between 2014 and 2026, accounting for approximately four-fifths of the overall increase in employment during that period. Of the approximately 3.7 million additional workers, around 2.5 million were non-EU nationals, while 408,000 came from EU countries. Employment among British nationals increased by approximately 734,000.

Department for Education statistics that apprenticeship starts in England declined from approximately 509,000 in 2015/16 to around 339,000 in 2023/24, a reduction of roughly one-third. Starts did recover to approximately 353,500 in 2024/25, but remained substantially below their 2015/16 level.

This means that employers often report shortages of skilled tradesmen, as the country trains fewer apprentices than it did a decade ago. Smith’s proposed approach would require companies to demonstrate that they are investing in British workers before turning to overseas recruitment.

Studies Show Mass Immigration Depresses Workers’ Wages.

A 2015 Bank of England working paper by Stephen Nickell and Jumana Saleheen found that immigration had a small negative effect on average British wages, with the largest impact concentrated among semi-skilled and unskilled service workers. Their research estimated that a 10-percentage-point increase in the immigrant share relative to native workers in those occupations was associated with approximately a 2 percent reduction in wages.

Similarly, a 2013 study by economists Christian Dustmann, Tommaso Frattini, and Ian Preston found that immigration reduced wages among native British workers below the 20th percentile of the earnings distribution. The research identified the greatest negative effects among lower-paid workers, although it also found modest positive effects among higher-paid workers.

American research has produced comparable findings, where in a 2003 paper published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Harvard economist George Borjas estimated that a ten percent immigration-induced increase in labor supply could reduce the wages of competing workers by approximately three to four percent.

The studies demonstrate that mass immigration can impose measurable costs on particular groups of workers, especially those facing direct labor-market competition.

For employers, recruiting from a larger international labor pool can provide an alternative to increasing wages or financing expensive training programs. For workers competing in affected occupations, this means they may have to compete with people willing to work for less and many who are, on paper, already trained.

Trump’s Economic Nationalism Model for Prosperity.

The debate in Britain is one that has already been had in the United States, and nearly a decade ago, saw President Donald J. Trump enact a populist-nationalist economic policy. Trump entered the White House in January 2017, promising to revive American manufacturing, protect domestic industries, restrict certain forms of immigration, and encourage companies to invest in American workers.

His administration pursued these objectives through the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, deregulation, and restrictions on employment-based immigration.

The American economy recorded several notable improvements during the three years preceding the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate fell from 4.7 percent when Trump entered office to just 3.5 percent in February 2020, matching the lowest level since 1969.

Manufacturing employment also increased during the first two years of his presidency, with hundreds of thousands of industrial jobs added before the sector began weakening in 2019. American workers experienced real wage gains during the expansion, while unemployment among Black and Hispanic Americans reached historically low levels.

Household incomes also rose substantially. The U.S. Census Bureau reported that real median household income increased by 6.8 percent between 2018 and 2019, reaching $68,703 in its original published estimate. Meanwhile, the official poverty rate declined to 10.5 percent in 2019, the lowest recorded since the Census Bureau began publishing such statistics in 1959. Around 4.2 million fewer Americans were living in poverty in 2019 than in 2018.

The period provides a key example of what a populist-nationalist economic policy can accomplish in just a few short years.

Could Economic Nationalism Unite Britain’s Left and Right?

Trade unions historically emerged to defend domestic workers against low wages, poor conditions, and employers’ ability to weaken collective bargaining. Those objectives can overlap with economic-nationalist demands for tighter labor immigration rules, stronger apprenticeships, and greater investment in domestic industries.

Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, has made reducing immigration a central political priority. Smith’s proposals approach the issue from a different direction, focusing on employers’ responsibilities to train workers and maintain competitive wages.

GMB, a founder of the Labor Party in the 1920s, is unlikely to begin supporting Farage and Reform UK, but Smith’s comments indicate that they may force Labour itself to start adopting a more nationalist economic stance.

The resulting debate within the Labour Party could prove particularly significant in industrial communities where traditional Labor loyalties coexist with growing support for immigration restrictions, and could potentially fracture Labour.

Putting British Workers First.

It is clear that Britain needs skilled welders, electricians, engineers, construction workers, and shipbuilders. What is not clear is whether it is sustainable to keep importing workers, rather than training them at home. The evidence from wage research demonstrates that immigration can create downward pressure on earnings in particular occupations. Britain’s apprenticeship figures reveal a lack of commitment from companies and government to really invest in skilled labor, making the shortages worse.

The challenge for politicians in Britain in the coming years will be how to address these deep-seated issues. While foreign labor may boost corporations’ bottom lines, most voters are British.

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