France and Italy Count the Cost as Protests Turn Violent Across Europe

The spire of Limoges’s town hall collapsed into the flames. The building, inaugurated in 1883, was largely destroyed after intruders set it alight on Saturday, October 17, according to the local authorities.

In Milan, a march against wars and rising living costs began peacefully, then gave way to burning barricades and looting. Piazza del Duomo emptied as police used tear gas and water cannons. A shopping district accustomed to Saturday crowds became a place to flee.

By Sunday, October 18, France was counting thousands of detentions and hundreds of injuries. The interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, reported more than 2,000 people detained and more than 600 police officers, gendarmes and firefighters injured. The figures remained provisional.

Hundreds of thousands had demonstrated peacefully in France. But attacks on public buildings, shops and the police came to dominate the aftermath. Similar confrontations in Italy, Belgium and Albania, alongside housing protests in Portugal, presented governments with disputes that shared some demands but had distinct causes and participants.

From the Classroom to the Streets

The French movement had begun in schools in the poorer northern suburbs of Paris in September, with complaints familiar to students and parents: teacher shortages, overcrowded classrooms and dilapidated facilities. Those frustrations drew support beyond school gates. Education became a point of entry into a wider argument about inequality and the quality of public services.

By Saturday, the CGT labor federation was demanding higher wages, pensions and minimum benefits, as well as negotiations with student and workers’ organizations. It put participation at about 800,000. The Interior Ministry’s estimate was 550,000. Even the lower figure indicated a mobilization far larger than the groups responsible for the destruction.

In Marseille, intruders breached the town hall. In Lyon, the tourist office was set on fire. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu blamed ultra-left groups and criminals for the violence. President Emmanuel Macron promised prosecutions and punishment. France holds a presidential election next year.

The CGT, for its part, accused the government of allowing tensions to escalate by refusing to answer protesters’ demands. It called for continued peaceful mobilization. The disagreement extended beyond who had committed the violence to whether the government had created the conditions in which a broader confrontation could take hold.

There were also urgent questions about police tactics. In Saint-Étienne, a 17-year-old lost a hand during Saturday’s unrest. Prosecutors assigned the police inspectorate, the IGPN, to establish the cause of the injuries. Initial reports suggested he had picked up a police grenade before it exploded. The precise circumstances remained under investigation.

In Paris, prosecutors opened a separate inquiry after a man died during the demonstration, apparently after falling ill. The cause of death remained under investigation.

The streets were not quiet for long. On Sunday afternoon, police again fired tear gas at Place de la République and bicycles were set alight. Carrefour’s chief executive said 50 of the retailer’s stores had been damaged in Saturday’s unrest, including 20 that were looted.

Milan’s Shattered Center

Italy’s national police tally, released Sunday, recorded 28 arrests and 141 injured members of the security forces after Saturday’s demonstrations. Those figures covered the Italian protests collectively. Confrontations were reported in Turin and Bologna as well as Milan, where police estimated that roughly 5,000 people had joined the march.

In Milan, groups moved through the center, throwing stones and barriers at officers before retreating across the open expanse of Piazza del Duomo. Storefronts were smashed, merchandise was targeted and a Carabinieri car was left battered, its windows broken. Police responded with tear gas and water cannons.

More violence followed on Sunday. ANSA reported groups attacking shop windows with tables and chairs in Via Torino, before further confrontations near Piazza Mercanti. Officers again used tear gas and water cannons as stones and explosive firecrackers were thrown at them.

Confcommercio, the business association, estimated losses in central Milan at more than €500,000. The preliminary assessment included physical damage and revenue lost when shops closed early. For businesses caught along the route of the disorder, the cost extended beyond replacing glass.

“Demonstrating is a right. Setting our cities ablaze is not,” Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in a social media post. She demanded that opposition parties condemn the violence without equivocation.

Milan’s mayor, Giuseppe Sala, condemned the destruction but questioned whether enough police had been deployed. Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi accused him of shifting attention from the attackers to the authorities. Elly Schlein, the Democratic Party leader, rejected the violence while warning against using it to discredit peaceful protesters.

Beyond France and Italy

In Brussels on Saturday, several hundred mostly young demonstrators gathered amid opposition to rising education costs and reforms that student groups feared would make higher education less accessible. Some overturned a car; police deployed tear gas and water cannons.

In Tirana, students joined a movement demanding Prime Minister Edi Rama’s resignation. Protesters threw rocks and gasoline bombs at police, who responded with tear gas, water cannons and baton charges.

Anger there centered on perceived government corruption, scarce jobs and poor education. Rama has denied wrongdoing and said he would not step down. The police chief said seven officers had been suspended over allegations that they had exceeded their authority or failed to use proportionate force.

Portugal offered a different scene on Saturday night. In Lisbon’s Rossio square, demonstrators pitched tents after marches over housing and living costs. AFP journalists described hundreds of mostly young participants sitting and singing around the statue of King Pedro IV. The occupation formed part of a wider protest over the affordability of everyday life.

“We are suffocating,” Elena Costa, a 46-year-old social worker, told AFP, describing the pressure on people who paid taxes yet felt they were losing access to housing.

Housing prices provide some measure of that pressure. Eurostat reported that Portuguese home prices in the second quarter of 2026 were 16.5 percent higher than a year earlier, compared with 4.7 percent across the European Union. These were purchase prices, rather than rents, but they showed the scale of the increase in the housing market.

In Porto, the dispute concerned an earlier police operation. Officers dispersed a housing protest camp in the early hours of October 15. Police said some participants resisted the operation and reported one officer injured, along with an unspecified number of demonstrators. Amnesty International described a peaceful encampment and called for an investigation into allegations of excessive force.

The different accounts resist a single explanation for Europe’s unrest. In one city, the immediate issue was a school system; in another, a housing market or distrust of a government. Violence added a further conflict over public safety and the conduct of the police. Its presence did not erase those distinctions.

In Paris, Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire said the attacks endangered lives, damaged businesses and diverted attention from young people whose demands deserved to be heard. City cleaning crews had been deployed overnight. Of those responsible for the violence, the mayor said: “They undermine the very exercise of the right to demonstrate.”