Gen Z protests spread across Europe as Halloween clashes hit Frankfurt and France

Halloween weekend across Europe

Thousands of young people joined protests across Germany and other European countries on Saturday, 31 October, over the cost of living, underfunded schools, rearmament and the climate crisis. German organisers, citing the DPA news agency, said more than 100,000 people took part nationwide, while inews reported tens of thousands at around 30 locations. Demonstrations also took place in Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, Portugal and Italy, where the unrest began after truck drivers and farmers blocked southern roads over fuel prices. Sara Garcia Santamaria, a researcher at the University of Valencia, sees a shared outlook across national borders.

“There is a transnational system of values. The protests arise, however, in very specific national contexts.”

France and the school blockades

France saw the largest protests, with hundreds of thousands marching on the third consecutive weekend of nationwide demonstrations. The movement began in the Paris suburbs in September and has since spread across the country. When pupils returned on Monday, 2 November, after a two-week break, the blockades were far smaller: the Education Ministry counted 41 schools, about 1% of the nationwide total, blocked by 8.30am. Education Minister Edouard Geffray told France Inter that the attempted blockades were marginal.

“We're talking about just a handful of units, a few individual schools.”

Geffray added that protest is allowed, but blocking access to schools is against the law. In late October he offered to cap class sizes at 28, spend 4 billion euros on renovating schools, add 15,000 higher-education places and introduce a new admissions system by 2028, but student representatives said that was not enough.

Frankfurt and Berlin

In Frankfurt, police said rioters smashed shop windows and threw molotov cocktails at emergency services personnel, while inews reported that some shops were looted and 54 people arrested. The Gen Z Regelt group in Frankfurt estimated that 7,000 students and young workers took part. Hesse's interior minister, Roman Poseck, said around 100 clearly identified left-wing extremists had infiltrated the protests and called the way they ended "shameful". German interior minister Alexander Dobrindt told Bild that police had prevented violence like that seen in Paris and warned of consequences:

“I expect there to be severe penalties.”

In Berlin, a daytime rally near the Brandenburg Gate passed peacefully, but a separate evening demonstration ended in scuffles.

Germany nationwide, organisers via DPA (more than 100,000)100,000

Frankfurt, Gen Z Regelt estimate7,000

Germany nationwide, organisers via DPA (more than 100,000)

100000 people

Frankfurt, Gen Z Regelt estimate

7000 people

Data from the article text

Anonymous accounts and organised looting

Shopping districts in several European cities were boarded up over the weekend against flash looting that anonymous social media accounts had called for. Spanish police arrested several people aged 16 to 20 accused of running Telegram channels that steered targeted looting, using accounts named "Blocus", a term French students use for occupying their schools. Police said the organisers used the look of a political protest "as a cover" for planned looting and arson. A police statement said recruitment ran from videos on TikTok and posters with QR codes to WhatsApp and Telegram groups, and that participants were to gather on 31 October before being told by private chat which shops lacked police presence. About 14 shops in Barcelona were looted in one night of organised unrest.

Serbia and the wider wave

The wave follows mobilisations in Kenya in 2024 and across Nepal, Indonesia, the Philippines, Madagascar, Morocco and Peru in 2025. In Serbia, the Student List won a national parliamentary mandate and is poised to form a new administration after dislodging a long-established government accused of corruption and links to organised crime. Eighty-five student assemblies selected its candidates, and the list reportedly raised almost 2 million euros (1.7 million pounds) from more than 26,000 individual donors during the campaign. Vladan Djokić, rector of Belgrade university and a long-term supporter of the movement, was not chosen as a candidate.