Hundreds of thousands of Europeans took to the streets in separate, uncoordinated demonstrations to protest the rising cost of living in their country.
Saturday’s wave of unrest in Belgium, France, Italy and Portugal put pressure on governments across the European Union.
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France saw one of the most turbulent days of protest in decades, with more than 550,000 people joining demonstrations, according to the Interior Ministry, and police clashing with demonstrators across the country.
The marches, which followed weeks of student protests, degenerated into clashes, looting and fires after violent fringe groups targeted public buildings, luxury shops and supermarkets, as well as attacks on vehicles and police officers.
French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said 1,200 people had been arrested and 150 police officers injured. “It’s a miracle that the toll was not higher,” he said while visiting officers deployed in central Paris.
Dozens of stores were looted in Paris, Marseille, Nice, Nantes, Bordeaux, Limoges, Lille, Toulouse and Strasbourg, the French news agency AFP reported.
Entire streets of the capital “were devastated,” said Paris Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire.
A fire started by masked protesters in Limoges largely destroyed the more than 140-year-old town hall, while town halls in Marseille and Lille were broken into and vandalized. In Lyon, demonstrators set fire to the city’s tourist office.
President Emmanuel Macron declared on X that those responsible would be “pursued and punished”.
In the Belgian capital, Brussels – which has already seen weeks of student protests against university tuition fees – police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse protesters, whom they accused of throwing missiles at them and setting fires.
In Liège, a small town east of Brussels, police also deployed water cannons to disperse protests. Police did not say how many people were present.
Meanwhile, in Lisbon, the Portuguese capital, tens of thousands of protesters demonstrated against the cost of living crisis, low wages and lack of access to housing in big cities. Housing prices in Portugal have more than doubled since 2017, while rents on new leases have increased almost as much.
Portuguese Parliamentary Affairs Minister Carlos Abreu Amorim said on Friday that “the government will not give in to the cries of the streets”. Protesters said their leaders were “disconnected” from the problem.
In Milan and Bologna, Italian police reported that, alongside peaceful protests over the cost of living, demonstrators threw stones and clashed with police.
Italian media reported several injuries and arrests.
French protests overflow
Even if protests in other countries have not reached the same scale as the rallies in France, they could be a sign of boiling over discontent, Alberto Alemanno, professor of European law and politics at HEC Paris Business School, told Al Jazeera.
“France is the epicenter of this movement…and there are now signs that this is spreading beyond France,” Alemanno said.
He said Saturday’s protests may not be the last in many of these countries and new hot spots could emerge.
In Greece, Germany and Austria, the “first stages” of a movement are taking shape, with mobilization expected “in the coming week,” he said.
It’s not a single movement, he explained, but several protests happening at once, with “shared grievances”: underfunded education, rising costs of living and, for students, uncertain prospects after graduation.
The unrest comes at a crucial time for Europe, Alemanno said, as the continent prepares for an “unprecedented super-cycle of national elections” in the next 12 months, with votes expected in Spain, France, Italy and Poland.
“Inevitably, all these protests, all these mobilizations will be at the center of the political conversation,” Alemanno said.
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