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Edition 6 · Loss of Control

Europe's protest wave reaches Germany, and turns violent there too

More than 320,000 marched in France on the third weekend of protests, and youth rallies in German cities ended in looting in Frankfurt.

Painted illustration of young protesters, some in Halloween costumes, on a German shopping street at night as a police water cannon sprays them.
AI illustration. Illustration of Saturday night's protests in Germany. Hindsight Media

2 min read

This update was added on Sunday 1st November, after the edition's reporting week closed, because of what happened on Saturday evening.

Europe's youth-led protests over schools and the cost of living, last week's lead story, had their third weekend on Saturday 31st October, and for the first time Germany was one of the main scenes.

In France, more than 320,000 people marched, by the Interior Ministry's count; the organisers counted nearly half a million.1 The marches were largely peaceful, but police fired tear gas in some cities, and there were more than 500 arrests after clashes in Toulouse, Lyon and Marseille. The Interior Minister, Laurent Nuñez, said a police officer had been injured by a Molotov cocktail.2 Five days earlier the government had offered its first concessions, including caps on some class sizes and student grants that rise with inflation; students said it was not enough and have called a national day of protest for Thursday 5th November.3

In Germany, a campaign group called Gen Z regelt ("Gen Z takes charge") called rallies against underfunded schools, the cost of living, spending cuts and military service. Officials in Frankfurt, Munich and Berlin counted as many as 18,000 people in those cities, about half the organisers' estimate.2 "We are against compulsory military service and we are in favour of a fairer distribution of the burden," said a spokesperson, Lina Friedrich.2

After dark there was violence in Berlin, Cologne and Hamburg as well as Frankfurt, and police said they had used water cannon against protesters throwing fireworks, stones and bottles at emergency workers. In Frankfurt, rioters looted shops on the main shopping street, threw Molotov cocktails at emergency services and smashed the windows of a gun shop; police said they had seized two weapons. Roman Poseck, the interior minister of the state of Hesse, said about 100 "clearly identified left-wing extremists" had infiltrated the march, and added: "France must not be held up as a model in this regard."2

There were also clashes in Rome and Turin, and in Portugal police cleared a new protest camp against a rental bill.2 The next test is France's national day on 5th November.