Europe protests: prices, housing and schools drive people into streets

On Saturday, 24 October, protests took place in several European countries at once, from France and Belgium to Italy, Spain, Portugal and Albania. The triggers differ, but the demands repeat: affordable housing, lower energy prices, protecting living standards and support for public services. There is no single European movement, just several parallel waves of discontent. The same day, thousands of people filled the squares of Czech cities to protest against plans to abolish licence fees and out of concern for the future of public media.

Why Europe is unhappy

Europeans have lived through several years of rapid price growth, housing in big cities is becoming ever less affordable, and energy is getting more expensive again. Meanwhile, governments facing strained public finances are looking for places to save, just as part of the public demands more money for schools, public services, wages and social protection.

A common feature is the strong involvement of young people, who fear that neither education nor work will give their generation the living standards and security their parents enjoyed. The movements have also started to watch and inspire one another: Italian demonstrators refer to the French protests in their slogans, the Spanish mobilisation for affordable housing has found an echo in Portugal, and student organisations in different countries are swapping experience.

Belgium and Italy: tear gas and soldiers on the streets

In France, hundreds of thousands of people have been taking to the streets for several weeks as discontent has spread from conditions in schools to the high cost of living. The student protests have found an echo in neighbouring Belgium. On Saturday, hundreds of mostly young people gathered in Brussels again, demanding more money for education, better conditions for students and changes to planned reforms. They are also protesting against budget cuts and what they see as disproportionate police action at earlier demonstrations. Clashes between small groups and police again disrupted the peaceful event: some participants tried to break through the police cordon, while others piled shared bikes and scooters in the street and tried to set them on fire. Police responded with tear gas and pepper spray and, according to Belgian media, a water cannon.

The protest was noticeably smaller than those in previous weeks. The Belgian student movement began in early October over rising education costs, overcrowded classrooms and reforms that, according to students, could make universities less accessible. It has since merged with wider protests against the austerity plans of Prime Minister Bart De Wever's government. In early October, around 30,000 people took part in a nationwide union demonstration in Brussels.

On Saturday, hundreds of soldiers and thousands of police are patrolling Milan. After last weekend, when part of the demonstrations turned into looting and clashes with police, shopkeepers, as in France, boarded up the windows of luxury boutiques. The government sent another 500 soldiers to the city, and security measures are backed by drones and reinforced police units. Last week, Milan police detained 45 people, 34 of them minors, and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni then announced tougher penalties for underage offenders. Defence Minister Guido Crosetto stressed that the soldiers' powers remain limited: they can now use plastic restraints, but only around the railway station, and they have no pepper spray or tasers.

Several different demonstrations are taking place in Italy on Saturday. In Rome, hundreds of students took to the streets, wanting, among other things, to distance themselves from last week's violence. “The vast majority of the younger generation wants to study and come up with proposals, and does not want to be represented by those who exploit problems and needs to devastate entire cities,” Riccardo Ponzio, chair of the right-wing student association Azione Universitaria, told AP. A separate anti-war march is also passing through central Rome. Like the French protests, the Italian ones are not united by a single demand: they range from housing prices and the cost of living to education and foreign policy.

Tirana and Madrid: water cannons and pensions

Saturday is far stormier in the Albanian capital. In Tirana, riot police used water cannons against demonstrators, some of whom threw objects at security forces; according to the authorities, about 2,500 police officers are on the streets. Secondary-school and university students are demanding lower tuition fees, more investment in education and action against corruption, but their protests have merged with a broader anti-government movement demanding the resignation of Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama. Tension has been rising for more than a week: in earlier clashes, protesters threw stones, flares, fireworks and petrol bombs, while police responded with tear gas, water cannons and batons. Protest sentiment has also been fuelled for several months by opposition to a planned luxury tourism project on the Albanian coast linked to an investment firm founded by Jared Kushner. Rama rejects calls to resign. On Saturday he said the government is preparing a response to the students' demands and urged them to enter into dialogue.

The mobilisation in Spain looks different. Tens of thousands of people marched through central Madrid in defence of the public pension system: a government delegation estimated turnout at 25,000, while the organisers say 50,000. Demonstrators demand that pensions stay indexed to inflation, that minimum pensions be raised, and they reject any privatisation of part of the system. The protest comes five weeks before early parliamentary elections, in whose campaign the future of pensions has become one of the main topics. “Whoever governs, pensions will be defended,” read one of the slogans.

But pensions are not the only source of discontent: for months, the country has also seen protests over unaffordable housing and tenants' rights. One of the symbols became the September eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal from her rented flat in Madrid, after which a protest tent camp appeared on Puerta del Sol square. The two issues partly meet in fears of a falling standard of living. “I think the housing crisis has woken young people up,” 64-year-old Pilar, who took part in the march before retiring, told AFP.

Portugal: protest against rising rents

Housing is the main issue in Portugal too. On Saturday, demonstrators gathered in Lisbon demanding more affordable flats and greater protection for tenants. They mainly criticise recent measures by the government of Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, which relax the rules on annual rent increases and make it easier to evict tenants who do not pay. The government says the changes are meant to restore landlords' confidence and get the rental market moving, while opponents argue they will weaken tenants' position even further.

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Around Prague, based on reporting by seznamzpravy.cz