What: Galeries Lafayette, Louis Vuitton, Celine, Dior, Decathlon and Apple were among the retailers looted across France on 17 October as unrest linked to student blockades and the Gilets Jaunes spread to major cities.

Why it is important: Prime retail streets and luxury flagships, which hold large amounts of high-value stock, have become direct targets as a cost-of-living protest movement spreads across France.

Retailers across France faced widespread looting on 17 October as unrest spread to major cities. Alexandre Bompard, CEO of Carrefour and president of the Federation of Commerce and Retail (FCD), condemned the damage and looting suffered by businesses.

In Paris, an Intersport store was looted, the Celine store on Avenue Montaigne was ransacked, and videos showed a Dior boutique on Rue Saint-Honoré being looted. Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire warned of extensive damage while distinguishing the protest movement from the looters. In Bordeaux, a Decathlon on Rue Sainte-Catherine was looted and set on fire, and an Apple store, Galeries Lafayette and an Intersport were also targeted. The Louis Vuitton store in Marseille was broken into, and a Rolex store was reportedly ransacked.

Galeries Lafayette confirmed incursions in Paris, Chambéry, Nantes, Perpignan, Rennes, Tours and Bordeaux, its most heavily impacted store. Most locations had closed early as a precaution, but the scale of the violence overwhelmed security measures and stretched police. The retailer expects very significant material and economic consequences; all stores were due to reopen the following day except Bordeaux, which stays closed until Monday afternoon.

Most of LVMH's concurrent Journées Particulières open-doors events in Paris went ahead.

IADS Notes: The Bordeaux store, the most heavily damaged on 17 October, is midway through a two-and-a-half-year renovation to align it with the premium standards of the Haussmann flagship while remaining open to customers (Sud Ouest, March 2026). The damage and lost trading come as Galeries Lafayette pursues a heavy investment programme during a severe downturn in French department stores, marked by declining footfall and falling textile and clothing sales (Modaes, April 2026). Elsewhere, retailers are making security a collective, funded priority. Hundreds of businesses in London's West End are pooling £23m for surveillance, police presence and deterrence technology (Retail Week, May 2026), and UK high street retailers are deploying facial recognition to counter theft and threats against staff despite privacy concerns (Financial Times, March 2026). The events of 17 October, when precautionary closures were overwhelmed in several cities, show the limits of such measures when violence reaches this scale.

Galeries Lafayette and other retailers hit by looting as unrest spreads across French major cities

What: Chanel will open its first store in Wuhan at SKP, its fourth boutique inside the department store group's properties among 13 in China.

Why it is important: As luxury brands close unproductive stores in China, Chanel is opening in a Central China city of more than 13 million people, inside a department store complex built around standalone luxury stores.

Two years after SKP entered the Wuhan market, Chanel has unveiled the hoarding of its future standalone store, a first for the city. According to posts shared on Xiaohongshu, the boutique will sit between Louis Vuitton and Cartier on SKP K Avenue, a 1.5-kilometre pedestrian promenade set to host around 40 standalone stores upon completion. It will be Chanel's second store in central China.

SKP Wuhan, the fourth location of the department store group, is located in the Wuchang District, a central cultural zone of the Hubei capital, which counts more than 13 million inhabitants. Celine, Giorgio Armani and Prada will also open there, coinciding with the launch of the WWD x SKP Global Fashion & Beauty Summit.

As China undergoes a prolonged market reset, luxury players are closing unproductive stores, exploring untapped regional markets and testing pop-up formats. Chanel counts 13 boutiques in China, four of them within SKP establishments in Beijing, Xi'an, Chengdu and now Wuhan. The brand recently reopened its Plaza 66 boutique after an 18-month renovation and presented Coco Neige, Matthieu Blazy's first collection for the house, in a Spanish-style villa on Wukang Road.

IADS Notes: Chanel's arrival builds on the momentum of SKP Wuhan, where mega-flagships from Louis Vuitton and Miu Miu helped SKP Group lift its turnover by 15% in 2025, with SKP Beijing returning to growth at RMB 23.5 billion (WWD, February 2026). The group is now taking the same developer-led model to Southern China, anchoring a 1.35 million sq ft mixed-use complex in Guangzhou's Tianhe District with annual sales projected above $1.4 billion (WWD, March 2026). This expansion runs alongside a broader reset of China's luxury market. Global brands are answering the rise of local players with immersive flagships and architectural statements, and Wuhan sits alongside Beijing and Shanghai as a city where targeted expansion remains a priority (WWD, January 2026).

SKP to open the first Chanel store in Wuhan 

What: El Corte Inglés will hire about 6,350 people for Black Friday and Christmas, mainly in sales, food and catering, logistics and online commerce.

Why it is important: Most of the hiring targets food, logistics and online orders, so El Corte Inglés is staffing peak season around the same service, digital and logistics priorities set out in its strategic plan.

El Corte Inglés will strengthen its workforce ahead of Black Friday and Christmas by adding approximately 6,350 people to the areas expected to see the strongest increase in activity, including sales, food and catering, logistics and online commerce. The retailer says the additional staff will help improve the customer shopping experience and maintain the service and quality associated with the company.

The new hires will join regular operations across departments and also provide special services during November and December, such as gift wrapping and other support functions. To integrate them, El Corte Inglés runs a comprehensive training programme each year so that recruits start in their positions with the knowledge their tasks require.

The company presents the Christmas season as an entry point to its teams, with options suited both to candidates seeking a long-term career and to those looking for temporary, flexible work.

Positions on offer include gift wrappers, sales associates and fashion specialists; butcher, delicatessen, fruit and vegetable, pastry and fishmonger assistants; logistics operators and online order assistants; checkout and customer service staff; cafeteria, restaurant and kitchen staff, apprentices and professional chefs; prepared-foods and Gourmet Club personnel; and merchandise managers for outlet stores.

IADS Notes: El Corte Inglés's 6,350 seasonal hires put it alongside UK peers scaling up for peak trading. Marks & Spencer is recruiting 11,000 festive staff at £13.41 an hour (Drapers, October 2026). John Lewis Partnership is hiring 10,400 seasonal employees across John Lewis, Waitrose and its distribution network, including 1,800 distribution and supply-chain roles, down from a record 13,700 last year (Drapers, September 2026). The emphasis on logistics, online order and customer service roles matches the priorities Cristina Álvarez set out at the July shareholders' meeting, where she named customer service, the physical store, digital growth, AI and logistics as pillars of the group's updated strategic plan (El Corte Inglés press release, July 2026). The many fresh-food, gourmet and restaurant positions also reflect food's role as a traffic driver. At Seoul's leading flagships, food halls are the main entry point for new customers in their 20s and 30s, and 79% of younger first-time visitors to The Modern Food Hall bought other products (Maeil Business Newspaper, October 2026).

El Corte Inglés will hire more than 6,300 workers for Black Friday and Christmas