From France to Albania, social unrest is setting Europe’s streets ablaze

Ris­ing fu­el costs, dis­con­tent with the state of schools, de­clin­ing pub­lic ser­vices and a hous­ing cri­sis have cre­at­ed per­fect­ly stormy weath­er for an au­tumn of protests in Eu­rope.

Crowds have tak­en to the streets for weeks in ma­jor cities, re­sult­ing in ar­rests, loot­ing, in­juries, and vi­o­lence across France, Italy and Al­ba­nia. In Spain and Por­tu­gal, tent camps have sprung up in protests against un­at­tain­able rents and hous­ing costs.

Young peo­ple “feel dis­ap­point­ed with the (so­cial) mod­el and ex­pe­ri­ence a strong sense of un­cer­tain­ty and a lack of con­trol,” said María Sil­vestre, pro­fes­sor of so­ci­ol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Deusto in Spain. “And when spe­cif­ic sit­u­a­tions come to­geth­er, a spark sud­den­ly ig­nites that is ca­pa­ble of chan­nel­ing that dis­con­tent and dri­ving peo­ple in­to the streets.”

Cities have turned in­to bat­tle­fields as sev­er­al top EU economies, in­clud­ing France, Italy and Spain, ap­proach piv­otal elec­tions, while far-right par­ties have made elec­toral gains in Ger­many and could do so else­where. It al­so comes as Eu­rope faces a crit­i­cal mo­ment in its sup­port for Ukraine, with Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump mak­ing over­tures to Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin even as Rus­sia is blamed for in­creas­ing­ly fre­quent hy­brid at­tacks in NA­TO coun­tries.

Right-wing politi­cians have seized on the chaos. While protests in France have ap­peared broad-based, Trump por­trayed im­mi­grants as re­spon­si­ble for the de­struc­tion, writ­ing on his Truth So­cial plat­form: “The mi­grants have tak­en over France. They must CLOSE THE BOR­DERS, FAST!” on Mon­day.

Many of the protests have been fu­eled by frus­trat­ed young peo­ple. Oth­er el­e­ments in­clud­ing black-clad, masked ag­i­ta­tors have fo­ment­ed vi­o­lence, but French au­thor­i­ties and po­lice have not blamed im­mi­grants.

Here is a look at what’s dri­ving the un­rest…

Stu­dents say ed­u­ca­tion re­sources are dwin­dling

In France, which has a long tra­di­tion of pop­u­lar protest, high school­ers have staged block­ades and demon­stra­tions for more than three weeks, de­mand­ing more re­sources for schools they call un­der­staffed and di­lap­i­dat­ed, es­pe­cial­ly in low­er-in­come neigh­bor­hoods.

The protests then broad­ened as France’s CGT la­bor union and oth­er ac­tivists joined in while stu­dents paused for a fall break. The move­ment now in­cludes de­mands over ris­ing liv­ing costs and pub­lic ser­vices.

De­spite hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple march­ing peace­ful­ly, the week­end’s un­rest led to 2,400 ar­rests and se­ri­ous dis­tur­bances in parts of France, in­clud­ing loot­ing in Paris, Mar­seille, Ly­on and Bor­deaux. In Limo­ges, flames en­gulfed the 19th-cen­tu­ry City Hall and near­ly de­stroyed the build­ing. Some schools were set on fire. As stu­dents and ri­ot­ers threw fire­bombs and law en­force­ment re­spond­ed with tear gas, hun­dreds have been in­jured.

French Pres­i­dent Em­manuel Macron con­demned Sat­ur­day’s vi­o­lence, ac­cus­ing far-left ac­tivists of try­ing to fo­ment chaos by at­tack­ing build­ings and po­lice.

“Those who loot­ed will have to pay for the dam­age, and those who sought to bring down the Re­pub­lic will be held ac­count­able,” Macron said Sun­day in a rare tele­vised ad­dress.

In Spain, el­e­men­tary and sec­ondary school­teach­ers be­gan an in­def­i­nite strike in Madrid last week to de­mand bet­ter pay and work­ing con­di­tions. Dis­con­tent­ed teach­ers staged sim­i­lar walk­outs else­where in Spain this year.

Un­af­ford­able hous­ing stymies young peo­ple

In Madrid’s cen­tral Puer­ta del Sol, tar­pau­lin tents have blan­ket­ed the square for weeks t o protest ris­ing hous­ing costs, sparked by the evic­tion of Mari­car­men, an 87-year-old woman who lat­er died while hos­pi­tal­ized. Small­er protest camps fol­lowed in oth­er Span­ish cities.

Some things have changed since the en­camp­ment be­gan: pub­lic pres­sure led the rul­ing So­cial­ist gov­ern­ment to ap­prove af­ford­able hous­ing mea­sures, but a lack of sup­port in Par­lia­ment meant they didn’t pass, trig­ger­ing a snap elec­tion an­nounced by Prime Min­is­ter Pe­dro Sánchez for No­vem­ber. A gen­er­al strike will al­so take place in No­vem­ber — the first in 14 years.

Ma­jor hous­ing protests al­so have tak­en place in Barcelona, a fo­cal point of Spain’s over­tourism and hous­ing chal­lenges.

In Spain, the min­i­mum wage is 1,221 eu­ros ($1,370), while the av­er­age month­ly rent for an 80-square-me­ter apart­ment is around 1,130 eu­ros (about $1,270), ac­cord­ing to an analy­sis by the busi­ness news­pa­per Ex­pan­sión.

“Most of my pay­check goes to the rent. My room­mate strug­gles to make ends meet just like I do,” said Di­ana Man­zanares, a 20-year-old wait­ress at the Madrid en­camp­ment. “This is my re­al­i­ty and the re­al­i­ty of most of us liv­ing in this city.”

Sim­i­lar hous­ing protests have sprung up in Por­tu­gal’s largest cities, Lis­bon and Por­to.

Un­ten­able liv­ing costs as in­fla­tion ris­es in Italy

“Italia in Pi­az­za,” or Italy in the Streets, has gal­va­nized thou­sands of demon­stra­tors, voic­ing de­mands for bet­ter em­ploy­ment, health­care, ed­u­ca­tion, and ac­cess to hous­ing, as well as high­er wages to deal with ris­ing costs. In­fla­tion in Italy rose to 4.2% in Sep­tem­ber, sur­pass­ing the eu­ro­zone’s 3.8%, ac­cord­ing to gov­ern­ment da­ta.

The peace­ful march­es turned vi­o­lent over the week­end in three north­ern cities: In Turin and Bologna, and in Mi­lan — Italy’s fi­nance and fash­ion cap­i­tal, where ri­ot­ers clashed with po­lice, loot­ed stores and set prop­er­ty on fire.

In Mi­lan, 271 peo­ple were ar­rest­ed dur­ing two days of un­rest — most of them mi­nors, po­lice said. Four­teen mem­bers of the se­cu­ri­ty forces were re­port­ed­ly in­jured.

And now a new­ly formed group call­ing it­self the “Oct. 17 Move­ment” has an­nounced what it de­scribes as a “per­ma­nent mo­bi­liza­tion,” call­ing sup­port­ers to demon­strate every Sat­ur­day at 3 p.m. in cities across Italy, start­ing in Mi­lan.

Stu­dents in Al­ba­nia join an­ti-cor­rup­tion protests

In Al­ba­nia, an­ti-gov­ern­ment protests con­tin­ued Sun­day for a sixth con­sec­u­tive day in Tirana, fea­tur­ing more clash­es be­tween demon­stra­tors and po­lice. The vi­o­lence es­ca­lat­ed af­ter high school and uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents joined the broad an­ti-gov­ern­ment “Flamin­go” move­ment call­ing for So­cial­ist Prime Min­is­ter Edi Ra­ma to re­sign.

Ra­ma has con­demned the protests, say­ing par­tic­i­pants had been “ide­ol­o­gized and rad­i­cal­ized” by an­tifa, an um­brel­la term for loose­ly or­ga­nized far-left mil­i­tants in the Unit­ed States, where Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump has des­ig­nat­ed the move­ment a ter­ror­ist or­ga­ni­za­tion.

End­ing cor­rup­tion is a ma­jor de­mand of the Al­ban­ian civic move­ment — named for the nat­ur­al habi­tat of flamin­gos in an area where Ra­ma’s gov­ern­ment agreed to al­low a ma­jor lux­u­ry tourism de­vel­op­ment linked to Jared Kush­n­er, Trump’s son-in-law. They al­so want pro­tec­tions for health­care, ed­u­ca­tion, and pub­lic pen­sions, ac­cord­ing to its web­site.

In Ser­bia, uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents who have led mass an­ti-cor­rup­tion protests for near­ly two years are now chal­leng­ing a re­turn by the Balkan coun­try’s pow­er­ful pop­ulist leader Alek­san­dar Vu­cic in ear­ly par­lia­men­tary elec­tions this month.

The for­mer au­thor­i­tar­i­an pres­i­dent is eye­ing a re­turn as prime min­is­ter af­ter the Oct. 25 vote. The youth-backed Stu­dents’ List par­ty is be­lieved to be run­ning close to Vu­cic’s par­ty, mak­ing the out­come un­cer­tain and fu­el­ing fears of pos­si­ble vi­o­lence. —MADRID (AP)

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Sto­ry by TERE­SA MEDRA­NO and SUMAN NAISHAD­HAM | As­so­ci­at­ed Press