McDonald's looted and damaged amid store and restaurant unrest

A South Florida restaurateur who survived the Holocaust's shadow as the grandchild of survivors says the antisemitic hatred now surging in her native France is being fed by young people who don't understand the history they claim to defend. Olivia Ostrow, who was born in Paris and runs Maison Ostrow in South Florida, spoke to Fox News Digital about the unrest spreading well past the French capital. She pointed to social media as an accelerant of hostility and argued that many demonstrators have adopted political causes without grasping the history behind them. "Those kids and most of those people couldn't point to Israel on the world map if it hit them in the face," she said.

Paris McDonald's Left in Ruins

A McDonald's on Boulevard de Magenta near Gare de l'Est was ransacked as cost-of-living protests escalated into riots and looting that struck restaurants, cafés and grocery stores throughout Paris, The Associated Press reported. The city has imposed curfews in two locations. According to Le Monde, the restaurant suffered shattered windows and heavy interior damage. Computer screens were wrecked, and an ice cream machine kept dispensing vanilla onto a floor coated in ketchup. A security guard told the publication that intruders even tried to cook french fries before a man and his dog chased roughly 20 people out of the restaurant. Fox News Digital sought comment from McDonald's about the vandalism.

Food Businesses Bear the Brunt

The fast-food giant was far from the only food business damaged. Grocery stores absorbed heavy blows, a neighborhood café was burned out, a wine shop was destroyed and supermarkets were among the targets as unrest swept the capital. Among the worst hit was La Barrique, a neighborhood café near Place de la République that was burned out, according to Le Monde. Ostrow, whose grandparents survived the Holocaust, voiced alarm about what she described as growing antisemitism and the normalization of anti-Jewish attitudes in her home country.