Honestly given the scale of the riots I expected much more instances of shootings, 3 or 4 have been reported including this one Lots of people have firearms in france, between hunting clubs and shooting clubs, but the thing you see, is that that there's no such thing as the castle doctrine for instance, and self defense must be proportional... So you just can't shoot a home invader or you go to jail essentially, unless he attacks you with an axe and even then it must be proven that you had no other option and death was imminent... It's that, the real problem in france Imagine in the US if guns were all available as they are, but self defense laws were similar to french self defense laws... Like you have a car but you're not allowed to drive it, pretty much