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Europe's 2026 protest wave

The protests over schools, budgets, rents and the cost of living that spread across France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Albania in the autumn of 2026.

  1. Students blockade the Lycée Saint-Exupéry in Créteil after a teachers' strike over staffing on 17 September

  2. An online petition in France calls for a national day of protest over fuel prices on 17 October

  3. Police evict Maricarmen Abascal, 87, from her Madrid home of seven decades; televised images set off housing protests across Spain

  4. School blockades spread across France, with 340 actions recorded in one morning

  5. Spain's prime minister calls a snap election for 29 November after Congress rejects his housing decrees

  6. About 256,000 people march in France's largest day of student protest

  7. Maricarmen Abascal dies in hospital; Spain's two largest unions call a general strike for 11 November

  8. France promises 3,000 teachers for the schools worst hit by staff shortages

  9. More than 70,000 people join nationwide school protests in France

    France's school revolt forces a first concession

  10. Union march against austerity in Brussels ends in clashes, after a week of student protests over fees in Liège

  11. Student protests begin in Tirana and Athens

  12. Italian students march in cities across the country on 'No Meloni Day'

  13. Limoges city hall is set on fire on the most violent day of France's protests

    France counts the cost of its worst riots in years, and braces for more

  14. Protests over the cost of living turn violent in France, Belgium and Italy as Lisbon marches over housing

  15. France's prime minister orders local curfews after about 2,400 arrests

    France counts the cost of its worst riots in years, and braces for more

  16. Police clear the housing protest camps in Lisbon and Porto, detaining 55 people in Lisbon

  17. Portuguese police clear cost-of-living protest camps in Lisbon and Porto, arresting 55

    France counts the cost of its worst riots in years, and braces for more

  18. Macron meets high-school students at the Élysée; they call for protests to continue

    France counts the cost of its worst riots in years, and braces for more

  19. France deploys about 70,000 police and gendarmes for a new national day of protest

    France counts the cost of its worst riots in years, and braces for more

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