The arrest, executed in the early hours of Tuesday, October 20, 2026, targets Hodei C.D., a temporary construction worker originating from the Creuse department and born in France with French nationality, despite his Basque name and Spanish surnames. Elite RAID tactical units apprehended the suspect at his parents’ residence in Bussière-Boffy, a small village of 300 inhabitants situated in the municipality of Val-d’Issoire, about 50 kilometers from Limoges, with the participation of agents of the elite RAID unit and local intervention forces.
Protesters Gut Historic Limoges Municipal Building
Flames gutted the historic interior of the Limoges municipal building, an architectural landmark inaugurated in 1883, during urban disturbances that swept through the city on Saturday, when around 5,000 protesters gathered, including some 700 individuals described by authorities as radicalized and extremely violent.
According to the investigation, a group of individuals penetrated the Limoges City Hall through the underground part and caused a great fire on the interior, after a group of masked individuals had previously burned a municipal police car and broken windows to enter the building. Guillaume Guérin, the conservative mayor of Limoges affiliated with The Republicans, asserted that the destruction required substantial planning rather than opportunistic vandalism. “You do not destroy a two-century-old building with a box of matches and a lighter,” Guérin declared, describing the attack as a coordinated operation and stating that the suspect probably directed the attack and that there were prior explorations to decide how to do it. The mayor also stated that the ultra-left organized the logistics, blaming a group of anarchists and anti-capitalists dressed in black equipped for urban guerrilla warfare. Guillaume Guérin of Limoges, stated that the attack was likely premeditated and directed by the suspect, while Muriel Laskar, the urban planning councilor, acknowledged in statements to Le Monde that “we haven’t saved it yet” as firefighters worked to ensure the stability of the building. Fortunately, there were no deaths or injuries caused by the flames.
Investigators note that the suspect has a prior judicial record. Local reporting from Le Populaire du Centre established that he was previously prosecuted for assaulting a police officer during a 2024 protest opposing a wood pellet factory project by Biosyl.
Counter-Terrorism Units Take over Limoges Inquiry
The gravity of the Limoges attack prompted the Sub-Directorate for Counter-Terrorism (SDAT) alongside specialized organized crime divisions to assume control of the inquiry, elevating the legal framework surrounding the unrest.
Minister of Justice Gérald Darmanin instructed prosecutors to classify violence tied to the October 17 demonstrations under organized crime statutes. Darmanin noted that 70% of the more than 2,300 detainees since October 17 are adults and many have police records, emphasizing that they are not high school students, in contrast to the more than 8,000 detained since the student protests began in late September, 85% of whom were minors. Meanwhile, the government implemented selective night curfews restricting movement between 11:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. in major metropolitan zones experiencing persistent looting and clashes, with Laurent Núñez and Sébastien Lecornu decreeing select curfews in different areas of Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux, Lille, and Nice, while President Emmanuel Macron published a message asking for dialogue with the protesters and promising to be inflexible against the violent ones. In Marseille, dozens of protesters violently broke into the city hall and Benoît Payan personally called Macron to ask for reinforcements.
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