Europe Is Protesting Everywhere, but Not About the Same Thing

Europe Is Protesting Everywhere, but Not About the Same Thing

A school revolt turns into France's worst unrest in years

The spark came from French classrooms. After a teachers' strike on September 17 over missing staff and resources, pupils at a high school in Créteil, a working-class Paris suburb, organized their own protest on September 21, complaining of overcrowded classes, unfilled teacher absences and dilapidated buildings. By October 6, classes were fully or partly suspended at 891 schools, according to the Education Ministry. The government's October 8 pledge of 3,000 additional substitute teachers for struggling high schools failed to calm the movement, which broadened as the CGT union, Yellow Vest remnants and other groups joined.

October 17: half a million march, cities burn after dark

The October 17 national day of action against living costs and school conditions drew some 550,000 people across 110 marches, including 110,000 in Paris, according to Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez; organizers put the figure at 800,000. As night fell, groups set fires, stormed public buildings and looted shops, including a blaze that devastated the historic town hall in Limoges. Police arrested at least 1,800 people nationwide, 855 of them in the Paris region, and more than 500 police officers, gendarmes and firefighters were injured. Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin later said 217 people had been sent to prison over the violence.

Macron promises answers as 70,000 police deploy

President Emmanuel Macron condemned the violence but said he understood young people's anxieties, vowing concrete measures and a meeting with protesters. Scrutiny of riot policing intensified after a 15-year-old lost a hand during a protest in Lens on October 5; the interior minister suspended the use of stun grenades at school demonstrations. On October 24, more than 70,000 police officers and gendarmes were deployed ahead of a second Saturday of protests, and the CGT has called a nationwide strike day for November 5. U.S. President Donald Trump seized on the disorder to blame immigration and demand France close its borders, a claim French student leaders reject.

Portugal: rents double, tents cleared before dawn

In Portugal the trigger is housing. Purchase prices more than doubled between 2015 and 2024, rising roughly twice as fast as the EU average, while rents on new leases have nearly doubled since 2017. Before dawn on October 20, police cleared protest camps in Lisbon's Rossio square, where activists had pitched around 200 tents, and in Porto's Dom João I square, occupied for about 10 days, arresting 55 people. Thousands of demonstrators returned to both squares that evening, vowing to press on against what they call one of Europe's worst affordability crises.

Spain: a wheelchair user's eviction becomes a national symbol

Spain's protests crystallized around Maricarmen Abascal, a wheelchair user carried out of her longtime Madrid home on a stretcher after the owner firm raised her monthly rent by 275 percent to 2,650 euros. Roughly 100 tents now stand in the capital's Puerta del Sol square, and around 2,000 protesters rallied in Barcelona demanding a rent freeze, indefinite contracts and anti-eviction protections. Organizers estimated up to 500,000 marched in Madrid against speculation, against an official count of 70,000; a postponed Barcelona march drew an estimated 20,000 to 120,000.

Italy, Albania and Serbia write their own scripts

In Italy, about 10,000 people demonstrated over low wages and living costs; Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni ordered 500 soldiers to patrol Milan through year's end, declaring that protest is a right but destroying cities is not. Clashes in Bologna saw a giant photograph of Meloni set alight. In Tirana, anti-government protests now in their second week swelled as high-school and university students joined the "Flamingo" movement demanding Prime Minister Edi Rama's resignation. Serbia held a snap parliamentary election as a student-led movement born from the November 2024 Novi Sad station canopy collapse that killed 16 people challenged the ruling party, with polls at 47 percent against 40 percent for the students' list.

A convergence, not a single movement

Eurasia Group's Mujtaba Rahman called the moment a convergence of distinct national protest movements with substantially different triggers. Oxford historian Timothy Garton Ash likened it to the biggest pan-European youth wave since 1968, each country with its own spark. Eurofound researcher Marie Hyland warned the cost-of-living crisis is undermining the generational social contract, as young Europeans conclude they will not live as well as their parents. With France's 2027 presidential race approaching, analysts expect the unrest to benefit far-right frontrunner Marine Le Pen, who formally launched her campaign promising a national renaissance and zero-tolerance policing.