As rioters have left a trail of destruction all across France, one shopkeeper channeled his inner hero to defend his business' doors.
A man known only as Pierre has become an online hero for his recent defense of a video game store, and his image will likely live on forever as a meme.
'I can't intellectualize what happened. Maybe it will come a little after the battle.'
Pierre is a salesman at the Micromania store in Nice, France, a chain owned by GameStop. During the seemingly unending violence that gripped the country over the weekend, Pierre stood up to rioters who were attempting to break into the shop, which already had its security doors down and its front door broken.
In a video seen by over 4 million viewers, Pierre marched down one rioter who taunted him, but as he walked back to his entrance, he was blindsided from behind with a kick.
However, Pierre got right back up and was later seen calmly adjusting his glasses as he remained steadfast at the entrance. To make his story even more iconic, he was pictured in the doorway alongside a life-sized photo of popular anime character Goku from the show "Dragonball Z."
A photo of his stance has already reached tens of millions worldwide, with Pierre humbly telling French outlet ICI that he likely shouldn't have engaged with the rioters.
"I can't intellectualize what happened. Maybe it will come a little after the battle," he remarked.
"I think it shouldn't have been done anyway," he said of his actions. "It's stupidity. But in the moment, that's what I did."
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"Thank you so much. My team and I are deeply touched," Pierre reportedly said in response to the support he's received.
After allegedly suffering some wounds during his attack — likely from shattered glass — a fundraiser was set up to support him and the store.
"Donations are made to support Pierre," the fundraisers wrote, while also noting to be aware of scams as Pierre did not ask for anything to be promoted on his behalf.
At the time of this writing, the donation page had reached over $11,000.
Pierre's image already seems like it will withstand the test of time with supporters creating memes like this AI video of him performing a powered attack on rioters akin to the anime character he stood beside.
Another page has animated him into being his own hero, and it doesn't appear such posts will cease anytime soon.
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Photo by Valery HACHE / AFP via Getty Images
There will be an asterisk on Pierre's record though, at least for some of his supporters. The salesman said that while it was very nice to see gamers stand up and support one another, he made sure to qualify that the rioters did not represent the true ideology of the left-wing protests.
"We must not forget that it remains in the minority in terms of attitude," Pierre explained. "For the rest of the procession, things went rather well. There are a few bad apples, but that's not the majority," he claimed.
The riots in Europe are a warning sign of unchecked immigration policy, according to Nick Freitas.
In his latest documentary, the former Green Beret said that mass migration will eventually lead to the downfall of the West, through ever-growing resistance and a refusal to assimilate.
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