• Paris erupted as protests turned to riots and masked looters ransacked stores on Saturday.
• Small business owners took stock of what they'd lost on Sunday.
• "When I got back, they'd taken everything," one store owner told Business Insider.

"When I got back, they'd taken everything."

That's what one shopkeeper in Paris told me as she cleared debris from her store after major cost-of-living protests turned violent across parts of France.

Chaotic scenes unfolded on Saturday as rioters clashed with police and set vehicles and trash bins alight before masked marchers began to ransack businesses, including in the trendy Marais shopping district.

After hundreds of arrests and a tense, momentary calm on Sunday morning, more violence broke out Sunday evening as black-clad rioters dragged debris into streets and set it aflame.

Employees at a boutique fashion brand working in the area as the riots unfolded told me the situation felt "dystopian," and that at one point tear gas began seeping into the store. That apparently was not enough to put some shoppers off, however, as some continued to browse, they said.

They added that there was a heavy police presence on the street throughout Saturday, and that although they had hired extra security, they eventually decided to close early as the violence intensified.

Cycling through the city on Sunday, I followed what felt like a path of destruction that steadily ramped up as I neared the Place de République, where the city's 3rd, 10th, and 11th arrondissements meet — the scene of some of Saturday's most serious violence.

I stopped at several stores along the way to photograph the damage and speak with shop workers about their experiences.

A store owner at a gold-buying shop whose front window had been smashed told me she was forced to close up early on Saturday.

"I got a call. It was my neighbor, who was working next door at the restaurant. He'd made a video showing a group of young people," she said, adding that they forced the door open and "smashed everything up."

"They stole things," she said. "When I got back, they'd taken everything."

Later, I stopped outside a ransacked Nicolas wine store, one of the country's most prominent wine retail brands. The storefront was agape, the entrance and both display windows smashed, revealing shelves picked clean. Empty Champagne boxes and glass littered the floor.

Among the other businesses targeted by looters and damaged in the violence across Paris on Saturday were major supermarket chains, tech stores, bars, and vape shops.

Alexandre Bompard, the CEO of the Carrefour Group, one of France's biggest supermarket chains, said the cost of repairs to damaged stores would run well over $11 million. He said the destruction would lead to "considerable human and economic consequences," as franchise partners would be forced to reduce the hours of dozens of employees.

On the other side of Paris, the situation was calmer on Saturday. Outside my apartment in Montmartre, for example, life ticked along as usual, terraces full of weekend revelers and a Saturday buzz in the air.

A bartender at a popular Irish pub along the boulevard — a few doors down from the Moulin Rouge — said it had been a particularly busy evening and that she had seen no trouble, adding that people were on the whole "very polite."

By Sunday morning, however, many other Parisians were greeted by smashed storefronts and ATMs, broken glass, litter-filled streets, and burned-out cars as they emerged into a chilly, blue-skied morning.

And there were signs the city had begun to recover. Workers were already making repairs to an employment agency that had been broken into, and volunteers swept the streets.

As Paris tries to get back on its feet, Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire said that local businesses would receive government help. He said he had requested the creation of an "emergency task force to support shopkeepers" with insurance and administrative procedures.

"You bring Paris to life every day. Today, it's Paris's turn to stand by your side," he said.

• Andrew Koller owns property in Canada, but decided to buy a home in Japan after visiting.
• Koller spent $15,000 CAD on an akiya and spent months renovating it.
• He plans to visit on occasion and rent it out some of the time.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Andrew Koller, 31, a freelance camera operator who purchased a home in Yamagata, Japan, in March. Koller, who's based in Edmonton, Canada, renovated the home and plans to use it as a vacation home. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Like a lot of millennials, I was exposed to Japanese culture in some sense early on with "Naruto," "Pokemon," and "Dragon Ball Z." After that, I don't think my interest really left.

Come 2020, I had a bunch of time on my hands like everybody else. It seemed like a good time to finally learn Japanese. I've been learning Japanese with a private tutor since then.

Then, in 2023, I made my first trip to Japan.

Like everybody else who comes back from their first trip to Japan, I just fell in love. I couldn't stop talking about it, but I wanted a deeper connection to the community.

I wanted more than just the superficial, surface-level experience of Japanese life. So I thought maybe a good way to get that experience would be to buy a house that's not in a major tourist city, somewhat live there, and spend a good chunk of time over there getting involved with the community by renovating a forgotten property.

The algorithm was watching for sure. After my first Japan trip, my YouTube and Instagram algorithms were suggesting to me all these similar people doing similar things.

From that, I was like, this seems like something I can do. In my free time, I like to DIY. I have a little workshop — I wouldn't say I'm good at it, but I feel like I know enough to do the basics.

I'm at the point in my life now where I've had all these ideas and I've said, "Oh, it'd be cool to do this," but I never do it. I never follow through. I just wanted to prove to myself that I actually followed through on one of these somewhat whimsical ideas.

The house I bought in Japan cost a fraction of what houses cost in Canada

I've always been interested in real estate since a young age.

Purchasing your first house is doable, but if you want to purchase a second house after that, like a rental, it's extremely challenging to do that in Canada. Canada's housing market has exploded, especially in Alberta.

I'm in a very fortunate position where my partner and I own a house and we own a rental property as well close to the university area.

I bought the rental house when I was 20 with my parents — they had to sign on because no bank was going to loan a 20-year-old kid a mortgage. I rented out the rooms and then I lived for free for my time in college.

Both houses have a similar value. My primary residence is worth just under $600,000 CAD (about $422,880). When we bought the rental 10 years ago, it was around $500,000 CAD, but it's gone up since.

For my home in Japan, I spent $15,000 CAD (about $10,600) on the purchase price plus closing costs, which was another $3,000 CAD.

I can definitely see myself spending extended time in Japan.

I want to go out there at least a few times a year. It's close to a pretty big ski resort, and I snowboard.

Doing the math for that, if I was to go stay in Banff or Jasper — one of the more popular mountain towns in Alberta — for a week and ski, it's actually cheaper to fly to Japan, because the skiing is also very affordable, so that was a big factor for me.

I would like to rent it out, but I don't plan on making a lot of money from it

I went to Japan in October 2025 to look at properties. I made an offer in November, it got accepted, and then I got possession of the property in March 2026. Then I went up for the entire month of April to start renovations on it.

I wanted to respect what was already there when I went in. Even though the house itself wasn't ancient or historical — it was built in the '60s or '70s — it was very traditionally built with the Tatami rooms. I wanted to keep a lot of that, coming in as a Westerner.

I wanted to try and adapt to their way of life rather than trying to impose my own. I just wanted to complement what was already there.

Now, the house is 98% done.

The actual renovation costs right now are just over the purchase cost. So I'm at around $18,000 CAD and change, doing most of it myself.

Right now, the goal would be to do a short-term rental in the future, but I don't plan on it making a lot of money.

I think that's the one thing people will get confused about. They think, "If I do this and renovate it, I can make a ton of money off a short-term rental in Japan." That's not the case, because there's so much competition with the hotels there that are already amazing and very affordable.

I just want to cover the maintenance costs more than anything. Doing a little bit of short-term rental, I think, will help with that.

It's not an asset. I think maybe people go to Japan with the Western mindset, like, "Oh, it's a buy-and-hold asset." Outside of Tokyo and the big cities, real estate doesn't do that.

Real estate always goes down in value over time. If you're buying a house in Japan, go in with the expectation that it's not as much of a financial asset as it is a recreation: you'll get more of a cultural experience.