History · Europe's 2026 protest wave
Europe's protest wave: from a school blockade to the streets of seven countries
How a strike at one school near Paris became part of a wave of protest across Europe, what the protesters want, and what earlier waves suggest happens next.
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On Saturday 17th October 2026, the roof of Limoges city hall, a building more than 140 years old, collapsed in a fire that the prefect, the French state's representative there, said had been set deliberately. In Milan, rioters looted shops around the cathedral square. In Brussels, police fired tear gas at youths throwing bottles, and in Lisbon tens of thousands marched over housing and the cost of living.12345
In France alone, the interior ministry counted about 550,000 demonstrators; organisers said 800,000. By Sunday evening, the ministry had recorded 2,397 arrests, and 997 police officers and gendarmes, France's military police, injured.16
Most of the people who marched that day were not rioting. They were students, teachers, union members and tenants, and they were protesting about different things in different countries: schools, budget cuts, rents, the price of fuel.2
A month earlier, almost none of this had begun. This is how it spread, and what earlier waves of protest suggest happens next.
Chapter 1
A blockade in Créteil
On 17th September, teachers at the Lycée Saint-Exupéry in Créteil, a suburb south-east of Paris, went on strike over a lack of staff and resources. After the strike, their students blockaded the school. "The teachers explained why they were unhappy, and we decided to join them," one student told franceinfo.7
Their complaints were concrete: too few staff, overcrowded classes and not enough desks. A national students' union added run-down buildings, overloaded timetables and the stress of Parcoursup, the platform that decides university places.7
What turned one school into a movement was a video. On 24th September, the online outlet Booska-P published an interview with Saint-Exupéry's students; it reached 1.5 million views on TikTok. "I invite every lycée to do this," one student said in it. The Créteil education authority called social media an "amplifier of mobilisation".7
Two deputies from the left-wing party La France Insoumise (LFI) had visited the school on 21st September. The government later called the movement "a manoeuvre organised by La France Insoumise"; LFI's Manuel Bompard called that a conspiracy theory.7
By 1st October, police reports recorded 340 actions at schools in a single morning. More than 1,000 people had been arrested in two days, and 119 people, 85 of them students, had been injured since the blockades began.7
Chapter 2
From the schools to the streets
The blockades became marches. On 6th October, the interior ministry counted 256,000 demonstrators across France, 56,000 of them in Paris; organisers said twice as many. "Because we're young, nobody hears us; they look down on us," a final-year student told franceinfo.8
The cost of order was also rising. By 5th October, according to the Justice Ministry, 5,060 people had been arrested since the protests began, 87 per cent of them minors. In Lens, a 15-year-old lost his hand after picking up a police dispersal grenade. The education minister, Édouard Geffray, said two dozen schools had been burned or ransacked.9
On 8th October, Geffray promised to send 3,000 qualified teachers to the schools worst hit by shortages. Reuters reported that roughly 10 per cent of teaching hours in French public lycées were going unstaffed. Student organisers called it a first victory, and kept protesting.10
Chapter 3
The first border
In the first week of October, the protests crossed their first border, into French-speaking Belgium, where the yearly fee to enrol at university, the minerval, had risen from €835 to €1,194 for most students from this academic year. Students marched in Liège, and police there detained more than 100 people. The protests in France "did influence us a little", a 19-year-old student said.1112
Belgium had its own budget fight. On 9th October, Belgium's two largest unions led a march through Brussels against a budget that could change wage indexation and VAT and introduce annualised working time, under the slogan "Stay out of our pockets". Police counted 30,000 marchers; one union said 50,000.13
The main march was peaceful. Police said "groups of troublemakers" caused serious incidents before and after it. In Liège, the authorities banned gatherings after students clashed with police; more than 200 people had been arrested there.13
On 17th October, police fired tear gas at youths in central Brussels. The interior minister, Bernard Quintin, said it was "no longer simply a protest" but "pure and simple violence, organised and repeated with the aim of destabilising our society".4
Chapter 4
The price of a roof
In Spain, the trigger was an eviction. On 23rd September, police carried Maricarmen Abascal, 87, out of the Madrid flat she had lived in for seven decades; the property company that owned it wanted to let it at a much higher rent. Television showed the eviction across the country. More than 70,000 people joined a housing protest in the capital, the government said.1415
Pedro Sánchez's minority government put two emergency housing decrees to Congress. On Friday 2nd October, MPs rejected them.16 Three days later, Sánchez called a general election for 29th November. "We need to renew people's support," he said. Opinion polls suggested the conservative People's Party, backed by the far-right Vox, was the most likely winner.15
Two days later, on 7th October, Maricarmen died in hospital. Under public pressure, the property company had agreed to let her go home; her lawyer did not give a cause of death. The same day, Spain's two largest unions, the UGT and CCOO, called a general strike over housing for 11th November, the first they have jointly backed in 14 years.1417
Portugal followed. On 17th October, the country's largest union led tens of thousands through Lisbon, and that night young protesters pitched dozens of tents in Rossio square, after a camp in Porto. Portuguese house prices rose 124 per cent between 2015 and 2024, about twice the EU average. "We are suffocating," a 46-year-old social worker said.5 Before dawn on Tuesday 20th October, police cleared the Rossio camp, seizing 228 tents and detaining 55 people for disobedience; in Porto, protesters took their camp down without force. That evening, thousands returned to both squares, and organisers said more than 1,000 people had gathered at each; the 55 detainees were released pending a court appearance.1819
The prime minister, Luís Montenegro, said: "We fully understand that people want answers." He also warned against "importing into Portugal climates of instability and protest".5
Chapter 5
Italy, Greece and Albania
On 13th October, about twenty tents went up in Syntagma Square in Athens, outside the Greek parliament. Students from dozens of university associations said rents had reached about €600 a month for a studio, and asked for affordable housing and more public support.20
The same day, students in Tirana began protesting against Albania's prime minister, Edi Rama, after months of complaints about the cost of education, corruption allegations and a luxury resort planned on the southern coast, a project involving Jared Kushner. Protesters set fire to buildings including the prime minister's office. "Last year, we had elections, not a revolution," Rama said.21
By 17th October, Albania's clashes had entered their fifth day. Police fired rubber bullets for the first time; the national police chief said 167 people had been arrested and 132 officers injured.22
In Italy, students marched in Rome, Milan, Turin, Bologna and other cities on 16th October, a day they called "No Meloni Day", over school buildings, funding and a new 30 per cent cap on certain categories of foreign students in each class. Police in Turin used water cannon and tear gas.23
The next day, a march in Milan against wars and the rising cost of living turned into clashes and looting around the cathedral square. About 50 demonstrators, many of them minors, were detained. "Demonstrating is a right. Setting our cities ablaze is not," the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, wrote.3
Milan saw a second day of rioting on Sunday. Police detained about 270 people, around 80 per cent of them minors. On Monday, the government said it would send 500 more soldiers to the city, to reinforce an army operation that already patrols Italian streets.24 On Tuesday, an emergency decree made violent participation in a demonstration a crime punishable by up to five years in prison and a €20,000 fine, made parents liable for damage caused by their children, and presumed anyone over 14 responsible for their actions. Parliament has 60 days to make it law.25
Chapter 6
One bill, many grievances
Seven countries, at least five grievances. But one cost was rising everywhere.
In September, prices in the euro area were 3.8 per cent higher than a year earlier. Energy prices were 18.9 per cent higher; a year before, they had been falling. Inflation reached 5.1 per cent in Greece, 5.0 per cent in Spain, 4.5 per cent in Belgium and 4.2 per cent in Italy.26
Diesel has reached record prices in many markets because of supply disruptions tied to the Iran war and the war in Ukraine. The International Energy Agency is releasing emergency oil stocks "in response to the Strait of Hormuz crisis".27
The protests are not one movement, and their organisers have not claimed to be. What they share is timing. A school without enough teachers, a university fee, a rent and a tank of diesel all became harder to afford in the same autumn, and, in France at least, under a government with less money to spare. Each grievance had its own trigger. The energy shock raised the cost of living for everyone at the same time, so each of those grievances landed on households already stretched.2628
Chapter 7
Less room to pay
In 2018, a protest movement called the Yellow Vests began in France after a rise in fuel taxes was announced. Emmanuel Macron answered with money: a €100-a-month rise for workers on the minimum wage. The governments facing this autumn's protests start from a different place.2930
At the end of 2025, France's government debt, everything it still owes from past borrowing, was 115.6 per cent of the country's annual economic output, up from 112.6 per cent a year earlier. Its deficit, the gap between what the government spent and what it raised that year, was 5.1 per cent. Belgium's debt was 107.9 per cent, Italy's 137.1 per cent and Greece's 146.1 per cent. The EU treaties set reference values of 3 per cent for deficits and 60 per cent for debt.3132
France, Belgium and Italy are all under the EU's excessive deficit procedure, which limits how fast their spending may grow. France has until 2029 to bring its deficit down, and its net spending may grow by only 1.2 per cent in 2026. In October, its ten-year borrowing costs reached their highest level in 24 years, as investors questioned whether the government could control its debts.3228
Spain and Portugal are in a different position. Spain's deficit fell to 2.4 per cent in 2025, and Portugal ran a small surplus, with debt below 90 per cent. Their protests are about the price of housing, not about cuts.31155
Work is not keeping pace with prices for many of the people marching. In August, the unemployment rate for under-25s was 22.7 per cent in Spain, 20.6 per cent in France and 20.3 per cent in Italy, against 15.4 per cent across the EU as a whole. In France, that means about one in five young people who wanted a job could not find one. In the spring, hourly wages were rising by 2.1 per cent a year in France and Italy, more slowly than prices. By September, prices there were rising by 3.4 and 4.2 per cent.333426
In 1968 and 2018, French governments answered protest with pay rises. The same answer is harder now. France is bound by EU rules to slow its spending and pays more to borrow, while for many of the young people on the streets, wages lag prices and work is hard to find.3530322833
Chapter 8
Saturday 17th October
In France, two movements met that Saturday. The school protests were one. The other had started online on 11th September, with a petition calling for a national day of action on 17th October against the rising cost of living, and above all the price of fuel. No union or party backed it at first.29
It grew on social media for a month. By the week before, the unions had taken up the date; according to the prime minister, the CGT, one of France's largest unions, and the hard-left party La France Insoumise (LFI) had declared marches to the authorities. CGT branches called for higher wages and pensions, cheaper fuel and the defence of public services.3637
The day brought the largest crowds of the autumn, and the worst violence. Masked groups set fires and attacked public buildings, including city halls, in several cities. Hundreds of businesses were looted in Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Bordeaux. A protester died of a heart attack in Paris; prosecutors have opened an investigation into the cause of death.16
The prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, said: "It's a miracle the toll wasn't higher."2
On Sunday evening, Emmanuel Macron addressed the nation. "Nothing justifies it, nothing explains it, nothing excuses it," he said. "Tonight we all feel anger and shame." Those who had looted "must pay it back". He promised "full transparency" over the police response, after criticism that it had been poorly prepared.386
He also drew a line between the rioters and the marchers. Several hundred thousand people, he said, had protested "with legitimate demands" about the cost of living and the price of fuel, which "have their source in the conflict launched in the Persian Gulf, in which France took no part". That worry, he added, "is also being expressed in several other capitals in Europe". He said the prime minister would bring students, teachers, unions, employers, local authorities and MPs together that week to work on solutions.38
On Monday, at the prime minister's request, Paris imposed an overnight curfew in two neighbourhoods, around the Place de la République and Les Halles, and Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux and Lille followed. The authorities said the curfews would stay "for as long as necessary". Tuesday's marches were smaller, and the police promised a large presence for new protests planned for Saturday.39 Sébastien Lecornu said a national state of emergency could be declared "if needed". The interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, admitted a "lack of anticipation" and offered to resign; Macron refused.4041
French authorities blamed radical far-left groups and looters. In Washington, Donald Trump posted "France is burning!" and linked the unrest to immigration. French authorities have not linked immigrants to the violence.1
Chapter 9
What history suggests
Europe has seen waves like this before, and France more than most. They have ended in different ways.
In May 1968, French students occupied the Sorbonne, the university in the centre of Paris. Police cleared it by force on 3rd May, and outrage at the police action led the unions to call a general strike. About 9 to 10 million people were on strike by 24th May. On 27th May, employers, unions and the government agreed the Grenelle accords, which raised the minimum wage by 35 per cent. On 30th May, the president, Charles de Gaulle, dissolved the National Assembly. The June elections returned his conservative majority.35
In 2006, the alliance held. Students and unions together fought the CPE, a new job contract for people under 26 with a two-year trial period in which they could be dismissed without a reason being given. On 28th March, between one and three million people marched. On 10th April, nearly three months after it was announced, the government abandoned it.42
In 2005, there was no alliance. Two teenagers died in an electricity substation in Clichy-sous-Bois while fleeing a police check, and riots spread to nearly 300 towns. The government declared a state of emergency, with curfews. Sixteen days after the deaths, Paris was quiet.43 In 2023, after a police officer shot dead Nahel, a 17-year-old, at a traffic stop in Nanterre, more than 3,600 people were detained in the riots that followed. Their average age was 17.44
In December 2008, a police officer shot dead a 15-year-old, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, in Athens. The riots that followed were Greece's worst in decades, and calls grew for the government to resign. The prime minister refused.45
And in 2018, the Yellow Vests brought 282,000 people out on their first day of protest, 17th November. On 10th December, Macron declared "a state of economic and social emergency" and announced a €100-a-month rise for workers on the minimum wage. By 22nd December, the interior ministry counted 38,600 protesters.304629
Three patterns recur. Protests that join students and workers behind a specific demand have won specific concessions: the Grenelle pay rises, the end of the CPE, the minimum-wage rise of 2018. Riots without organisation or demands have tended to burn out within weeks, met with emergency powers rather than reform. And waves that frighten voters have often ended at the ballot box, with a vote for order: in June 1968, the elections returned de Gaulle's majority.35424330
This autumn has elements of all three. France's protests began with specific demands about schools, and the government made a specific concession. The violence of 17th October looks more like 2005, and so does the government's answer: curfews, and talk of a state of emergency. And the ballot boxes are close. Spain votes on 29th November. France chooses a new president next spring, with a first round on 18th April 2027, and Macron cannot stand again. Italy's prime minister faces an election next year too: no date is set, but it must be held by December 2027.1015473
Chapter 10
What happens next
History offers three paths. If governments can buy calm, as in 1968 and 2018, the wave subsides; but France's borrowing costs and an energy bill driven by the Iran war leave less money to buy it with. If the violence grows and the peaceful majority goes home, as in 2005, the protests could fade within weeks, leaving tougher policing behind. If voters decide, Spain's election on 29th November will be the first test of whether this autumn's anger turns into votes, and for whom; France's presidential election in April will be the largest.2827431547
Things to watch: what comes of the prime minister's meeting with students, teachers, unions and employers; whether France's unions call another national day; Spain's general strike on 11th November and its vote on 29th November; and the price of energy, which depends partly on whether ships can pass safely through the Strait of Hormuz.381527
In 1968, the wave began with students in Paris and ended with an election. In 2026 it began with a strike by teachers at one school in Créteil. Where it ends is still being decided, in seven countries at once.