Brawls and tear gas as watch launch queues in France turn violent
Swatch confirmed launch of new product had seen ‘problems’ at stores worldwide
Hundreds of people queued for hours outside Swatch stores. Photo shows police and security officials outside a Swatch store in Rome, Italy on May 16, 2025
Abaca Press / Alamy Stock Photo
Swiss watch brand Swatch has acknowledged ‘problems’ caused by customers at around twenty stores worldwide – including in France – following the launch of a new product.
This included fistfights between crowd members, and at one store in Île-de-France police had to use tear gas to disperse crowds.
The brand collaborated with fellow luxury watchmakers Audemars Piguet, meshing the latter’s classic ‘Royal Oak’ design with its own ‘Swatch-Pop’ watches to create eight new timepieces.
Sales of these ‘Royal Pop’ watches, made of bioceramic material and highly-stylised, are limited to sales at 220 stores worldwide.
The weekend launch saw aficionados queueing for several hours outside stores to ensure they got their hands on one of the models.
The manufacturer confirmed to Agence France Presse that “On launch day [May 16], there were problems in approximately twenty Swatch stores.”
“The queues of interested customers were extremely long and the organisation in place at some shopping centers was insufficient to manage this rush,” it added.
“The global reaction to the Royal Pop collection has been phenomenal, and demand is immensely high… [but] things have somewhat 'normalised' since launch day,” it said.
However, certain stores, including in Lyon (Rhône) are already out of stock of the new designs, leading to customer frustration.
Fights and tear gas
Queues of several hours were reported in cities, with hundreds of people waiting in line for stores to open.
Initial sales of the watches were limited to 220 of Swatch’s more than 3,330 total stores and franchises, with a ‘one watch per customer per day’ rule further increasing the number of clients in line.
This led to frustration in several cities, including Lille where at least four people told local officials they had been punched during brawls while waiting in line.
Scenes were perhaps most dramatic at Chesnay-Rocquencourt (Yvelines), the site of a Swatch outlet in the Westfield Parly 2 shopping centre. Around 300 people had arrived well before opening time to begin queuing, and had to be dispersed by police using tear gas.
Brawls were also reported in Milan, and crowd trouble recorded in Thailand and the United States.
