A Chabad rabbi who serves the Jewish community steps from Place de la République walked out of shul after Havdalah to find his car windows smashed and the vehicle burned out from the inside, after a Shabbos of fire and looting in the heart of Paris.

Rabbi Moshe Cohen, who has directed Beth Loubavitch Paris 11–République with his wife Tzipora since 2010, said security footage showed his car was torched during Shabbos, together with every other car parked on the street.

“You’ve never seen anything like this,” Rabbi Meir Shlomo Lubecki, who directs Chabad of the 3rd Arrondissement, a short walk from Place de la République, said. “Everything on the ground was torched: cars, shops, bicycles.”

The destruction came as nationwide anti-government demonstrations turned into some of France’s most destructive riots in decades. More than half a million people joined some 110 marches across the country on Shabbos, according to the Interior Ministry. Rioters vandalized roughly 1,500 shops, at least 3,000 businesses were pillaged, nearly 2,400 people were arrested, and localized curfews were extended.

Much of the Paris violence converged on Place de la République, near which several Chabad emissaries live, daven and serve the local community. Cohen said that when he returned to shul at 6 p.m., new groups from outside the area had taken over the streets. “They organized themselves in groups of 10, with Molotov cocktails,” he said. “Baruch Hashem, they were busy with the police and nothing happened to us.”

Lubecki said that during Kiddush on Shabbos morning, members of the Jewish community’s volunteer security service told everyone to go straight home immediately. Driving his family home after Shabbos, he said, “We ran every single red light. Everyone was running red lights because stopping the car was too dangerous.”

A synagogue in Paris’s 19th arrondissement was also vandalized during the riots, with rioters breaking in overnight and throwing Torah scrolls and furniture to the floor, Israel Hayom reported. No one was injured in that incident, and no arrests have been made.

Cohen was careful not to overstate the danger to Jews specifically. “It wasn’t about the Jews,” he said. “They were chasing what they wanted: shoes, phones, glasses. Jewish and non-Jewish businesses alike were hit.”

Both rabbis spent Sunday visiting Jewish shop owners whose businesses were burned or looted, and Cohen is organizing help to cover losses that insurance will not. He has also been distributing mezuzahs and encouraging community members to have theirs checked.

As France braces for possible further demonstrations this coming weekend, the Chabad emissaries of central Paris say they are not going anywhere. “Whatever our people need, we are here,” Cohen said. “It’s hashgachah pratit that we’re here, and we will continue to proudly do the Rebbe’s work.”