‘It’s hard for us’: Paris small businesses bear brunt of protest violence

Paris, France – Jagged shards of glass frame the hole kicked through the window of Hassan Rashdul’s mobile phone shop near Place de la Republique, the epicentre of looting and rioting that swept this part of Paris on Saturday. “I was crying,” Rashdul says, as he watches a CCTV livestream on his phone. The glass countertop is shattered, the floor carpeted with broken glass. The display cases that were full of new and reconditioned mobile phones, iPads, and computers are empty. The walls where headphones, cables, phone cases and other accessories hung have been stripped bare. “It’s really terrible,” the 32-year-old Rashdul says. “It was very, very hard for us… It’s already hard for small business owners like us.