French officials have opened an investigation into the attempted murder of a police officer and Germany’s interior minister has called for harsh penalties after peaceful and mainly youth-led protests across Europe ended in violence. In Portugal, police – some with dogs – cleared protest camps with baton charges, while security forces in Switzerland were attacked with paving stones. Protests over the education system, deteriorating public services, declining prospects, unaffordable housing and the spiralling cost of living have shaken a number of countries this autumn.
Violence erupted in the French capital as well as Marseille, Grenoble, Bordeaux, Lyon and Toulouse on Saturday night after an estimated 320,000 demonstrators, some in Halloween costume, took to the streets. As the rallies ended, masked and hooded rioters arrived and caused what the interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, described as an “extraordinary” level of violence. More than 770 people were arrested.
In Paris, the prosecutor’s office said incendiary devices were thrown at a group of about 15 gendarmes and police officers and a formal investigation had been opened for “attempted murder of persons vested with public authority”. Injuries reportedly included second-degree burns in an incident captured on mobile phone video and shared on social media and broadcast on French television. The level of physical violence and looting was significantly lower than on 17 October, when 2,600 people were arrested and as many as 3,000 shops pillaged in one of the worst nights of urban unrest in France’s recent history.
In Germany, looters and rioters rampaged through Frankfurt, the country’s financial hub, damaging stores and injuring more than 100 police officers. He singled out “violent left-wing groups and troublemakers from the migrant community”, adding: “Tough penalties must follow this breach of the peace.” Dobrindt told the tabloid newspaper Bild that deploying a heavy police presence across multiple locations had been effective. More than 100,000 protesters marched in over 30 German cities on Saturday to demand better education and lower living costs in protests led by the “Gen Z regelt” (Gen Z will sort it) campaign.
Hooded rioters damaged 17 Frankfurt shops, looting five of them, and threw missiles including petrol bombs, according to Roman Poseck, the state interior minister for Hesse. More than 100 of the 1,300 police officers deployed in the city were injured and 54 suspects, aged from 13 to 29, were arrested. Let me make this very clear: things cannot go on like this,” Poseck said.
Most of those arrested were German nationals, the minister said, adding that police estimated they had been confronted with “between 1,000 and 1,500 violent troublemakers, predominantly from a migrant background”. Violence also broke out Saturday night in Cologne, where police used water cannon to disperse the crowd, and in Berlin, where protesters attacked police with bottles and fireworks. Gen Z regelt posted a statement distancing itself from all violence.
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