Kelly Piquet calls for French rioters to stop trashing small businesses and F1 fans are outraged

Kelly Piquet has come under attack from F1 fans after weighing in on the absolute chaos going on in France right now.

Protests have turned into riots across the country with 1,200 people being arrested from the estimated 550,000 to have taken to the streets.

Buildings over 100 years old have been set alight in Limoges, including a townhall where the roof collapsed, while looting and vandalism across the country have targeted small and big businesses.

The protests originally started from students furious with staff shortages in schools for 15-18 year olds, as well as poor facilities.

But their action has been jumped on by trade union members and protest groups.

Now Max Verstappen's girlfriend Kelly Piquet has spoken of her dismay at the riots, insisting ransacking innocent local businesses isn't the best way to try and drive positive change.

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Kelly Piquet upset over French riots

She said with a post on her Instagram stories: "Watching what is happening in France and in other European countries is deeply upsetting.

"There is a difference between protesting, demanding change and making your voice heard and destroying the very communities you claim to be fighting for.

"People can have very real reasons to be angry. They can feel unheard, frustrated and abandoned by the institutions meant to serve them.

"But burning public buildings, destroying businesses, attacking people and leaving entire streets devastated doesn't fix any of those problems."

"In the end, it is ordinary people who pay the price. The shop owner. The employee. The family whose neighbourhood is destroyed. The taxpayer who will eventually pay to rebuild it all.

"You can understand anger without defending chaos.

"A society should be able to demand better without destroying itself in the process."

So, in a nutshell, Kelly is saying 'Yes, you have rights and reasons to protests, but what's the point in attacking innocent local people and destroying their businesses which can only make a community worse?'

F1 fans backlash

It's something we can all agree on, right? Wrong.

F1 fans didn't waste time in calling out Kelly, one telling her to 'just shut up and read the room.'

Another was fuming, saying: "Kelly Piquet, just shut the f*** up. The audacity to speak on a protest when you've been privileged enough to go through life without ever knowing what actual struggle looks like. Must be nice to be this disconnected from reality and still think your opinion deserves a platform."

One other fan pretty much said that Piquet was banned from public discourse for having a fortunate upbringing, saying: "Did anyone ask Kelly Piquet for her opinion on students protesting as a privileged white woman? No one? Perfect let's move on like girl sybau you're not entitled to even utter a word about the situation."

Curiously it's difficult to find any takes that challenge what Kelly actually says through a sea of people ignoring her point or saying just 'she's rich and therefore has no right to an opinion,' which itself is a genetic fallacy.

Not all F1 fans were ready to lash out at Kelly, even being puzzled by the outrage. One F1 fan account tweeted: "How do you see this... And think that she is wrong?

Another added: "Kelly is 100% right, while another echoed her sentiments, saying: "She is definitely partly correct. There's many people clearly not protesting in the right way."

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