French Counterterror Police Arrest ‘Ultra-Left’ Activist Over Limoges City Hall Fire

French police on Tuesday arrested a 34-year-old man suspected of taking part in the October 17 arson of Limoges city hall, three days after the riots that gutted the 1883 building. The elite RAID unit’s Bordeaux branch took him at 6:15 a.m. in a small, isolated house at Val d’Issoire, in the Haute-Vienne department, according to the Limoges prosecutor’s office. The prosecutor called him a “person suspected in the fire.” He is presumed innocent and has not been charged.

A source close to the case told Franceinfo he is an “ultra-left activist” already on the “fiché S” security watchlist. Some outlets first reported his age as 40; Franceinfo corrected it to 34. The prosecutor said investigators identified him through “painstaking” cross-checking of images and videos. ICI, the public radio network, reports that he is from the neighboring Creuse department and is suspected of earlier sabotage of TGV overhead lines and construction sites. His record was clean until an appeal court convicted him of violence against a police officer at an October 2024 protest in Guéret, a ruling he has taken to the Court of Cassation, so it is not final.

The Justice Ministry says he was not alone. Spokesman Sacha Straub-Kahn told ICI that “we are certain, from the images, that this person did not act alone,” calling it a “manifestly concerted action” and putting the crowd in front of city hall at 500 to 700 people with “fairly substantial pyrotechnic means.” No accomplice has been named or arrested. The only source for the ultra-left label is an unnamed one, and neither the prosecutor nor the ministry has said what role the suspect is accused of playing.

Custody, which began Tuesday, can run to 96 hours because the case falls under the special regime for organized crime. The investigation is run jointly by Haute-Vienne police and the national counterterrorism sub-directorate (SDAT). The national anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office has not taken the case, but is following it. Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin said Monday that anti-terror prosecutors would soon decide whether to treat the fire as a suspected terror attack.

The fire itself began around 6 p.m. Saturday, when masked protesters entered the town hall and set it alight, according to the prefecture. Prefect Maurice Barate said the fire was set deliberately. Overnight the roof and belfry collapsed, and only the modern rear section was saved. Nineteen people were taken into custody that day, and four police officers were seriously hurt. Prosecutors opened an inquiry into destruction of property by dangerous means by an organized group.

Mayor Guillaume Guérin says the state left his police to face the mob. Guérin, of the center-right Republicans, told Sud Radio that national police ran out of crowd-dispersal grenades at about 3:30 p.m. and fell back, and that he saw about 700 infiltrators among a march of roughly 5,000 (a figure the outlet did not verify). He told Public Sénat that 400 rioters faced only 30 municipal police officers, and that the state is “in part responsible” for what happened. He has asked for a special rebuilding plan like the one for Notre-Dame, full state funding of what insurance does not cover, and has said he may resign if he does not get it.

Reacting to the arrest, Guérin said he expects the courts to be “up to the task” and wants the suspect jailed, while noting the presumption of innocence, because “he destroyed the house of all Limousins.” He has secured a riot-police company for next Saturday, saying he needs national police and CRS officers “to maintain order.” Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu is due to visit Limoges on Friday.