Frankfurt riots after Gen Z protests reignite debate on migrant backgrounds

Riots follow mostly peaceful Gen Z rallies

Tens of thousands of young people joined largely peaceful rallies across Germany, backed by the initiative Gen Z regelt, which urged them to highlight their fears for the future and call for better education, affordable housing and more climate action. The violence came in the evening of Saturday, 31 October. In Frankfurt, street battles erupted after the protest, more than 100 police officers were injured (one severely), and shops were damaged and looted. Cologne, Hamburg and Berlin also saw escalations.

Ministers split over who is to blame

Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt of the CSU quickly set the tone, blaming violent left-wing groups and migrant hooligans for hijacking the demonstrations.

“There were peaceful demonstrations, which into the evening were hijacked by violent left-wing groups and migrant hooligans.”

Hesse's Interior Minister Roman Poseck (CDU) said most of those arrested were German citizens, while describing the offender group as predominantly from a migrant background. On Sunday, 1 November, he put the number of disturbers at 1,000 to 1,500. Chancellor Friedrich Merz backed his interior minister, and his spokesperson Stefan Kornelius said the assessment rested on observations by investigators and emergency personnel on the ground. Merz said his government would show no tolerance for violence. The AfD called for a closer look at 'migrant violence' and announced it would bring the topic into the Landtag. Leading Social Democrats warned against generalisations, while one CDU minister preferred to examine the causes of the violence. Dobrindt defended his wording at the congress of the police union GdP, saying he could not describe the violence he had seen any other way.

What the Frankfurt police report

On Thursday, 5 November, Frankfurt police told reporters that about three quarters of the 55 suspects they are investigating over the 31 October riots hold foreign citizenship. About half have no German passport, and of the other half, every second person also holds a foreign nationality. The police described the violence as coming mainly from an approximately 100-strong left-extremist group that acted from within the assembly, along with numerous groups of young, violence-prone men of migrant background. They said the pattern resembled groups that regularly come to attention for offences on New Year's Eve and at weekends, and that among the suspects in last year's Zeil incidents, 76% were male and 69% lacked German citizenship. Police spoke of a pattern they already know.

“One should not shy away from the debate about the possible origin of the perpetrators.”

Criminologist Christian Walburg of the University of Münster argued that the debate should not be avoided, but he warned that hasty conclusions are often drawn, and that a high share of migrant backgrounds among young people in big cities is not surprising.

Calls for quick proceedings and checks under immigration law

BDK chairman Dirk Peglow sided with Dobrindt, saying the images show that young men from a migrant-shaped milieu were active among the rioters, and that parts of these groups were already known to police from city-centre incidents. He stressed that such naming concerns concrete groups rather than people with a migration background in general, and that German citizenship held by many of those detained does not change that assessment. Peglow demanded swift proceedings and checks under immigration law for non-German suspects, while noting that expulsion is not automatically possible. He expects many suspects to be identified through video recordings and further investigation, and warned that police must prepare for similar violence at New Year's Eve and other large events.

“The rioters have shown with their behaviour that they accept considerable damage to shop owners and injuries to police officers.”

Controls on the Zeil and fears of being lumped together

Several people with migration backgrounds posted condemnations of the violence on TikTok and Instagram, and some said they feared being judged by their origin alongside the rioters. Police have increased checks on Frankfurt's Zeil shopping street, patrolling on foot and by car in groups of around ten officers, with identity checks and, in some cases, body searches. Young men interviewed there said they are checked almost daily and feel singled out, and questioned whether the recent riots justified the stepped-up presence. Three young men in training at Konstablerwache, by contrast, supported the checks, saying that carrying knives in the area was also a problem for them.