Apple is keeping seven Apple Stores in France closed all day Saturday, October 24, as another day of protests is planned across the country. Only the street-facing locations are shut. Stores inside shopping centers are operating normally.
French site MacGeneration reports that Apple sorted its French stores by how exposed they are to the street, and decided to protect its teams and storefronts.
Seven Street-Facing Apple Stores Close for the Day
Apple left the mall locations open because they sit inside shopping galleries, away from the street. The stores on open shopping streets are the ones going dark. Three of the seven are Paris flagships, which puts the capital at the center of the closures.
- Champs-Élysées, Paris
- Marché Saint-Germain, Paris
- The Paris store near the Opéra
- Sainte-Catherine, Bordeaux
- Lille
- Strasbourg
- Aix-en-Provence
Two of the Closed Stores Were Looted Last Saturday
The Apple Stores in Lille and Bordeaux were looted on October 17 during protests that also left shops ransacked in several French cities. The Lille store on rue Faidherbe was forced open in the afternoon. The Bordeaux store on Sainte-Catherine, the city’s main shopping street, was hit as well.
Reporters on the scene saw a man leave the Lille store carrying a stolen computer. Videos posted on X show people walking out of both stores with products, but none have been officially authenticated. The number of devices taken and the cost of the damage are still unknown.
Sources say iPhones taken from Apple Stores lock as soon as they leave the building and ring loudly, with a message on screen saying the device belongs to Apple. The same sources say Apple would refuse to service one of these phones, even if a buyer purchased it in good faith.
French authorities are watching the resale market too. The government met with Vinted, Leboncoin, and eBay on Monday, October 19, and the platforms agreed to step up monitoring for suspicious listings, such as unusually low prices and bundles of new devices.
The iPhone Duo Launch Is Caught in the Middle
The closures land one day after the iPhone Duo went on sale, with supply already reported to be short. Lille stayed closed after the looting, and its reopening date kept slipping. Apple first hoped for Wednesday, then Thursday morning, and ended up aiming for 2 p.m. Thursday so it could hand over pickups to customers who had ordered an iPhone Duo.
All seven stores have an exemption to open on Sunday, October 25, from noon to 6 p.m.
