France is the epicentre of this movement … and there are signs now that this is spreading beyond France
France's protest movement shows little sign of easing nearly two months after high school students first walked out over crumbling classrooms, according to Al Jazeera. On Saturday, 146,000 people rallied across the country, including 46,000 in Paris, according to the Ministry of the Interior; unions put the figures at 250,000 and 75,000. Turnout was down on previous weeks, but police used tear gas and batons on protesters in Paris and fired tear gas canisters at hundreds of people blocking a road in central Lyon. About 70,000 security personnel were deployed, days after an estimated 575,000 people joined a union-organised rally.
The movement began in mid-September in high schools, where students complained of overcrowded classrooms, a lack of teachers and crumbling buildings. It soon broadened into protests against the rising cost of living, drawing in trade unions and the "yellow vests" movement, with rioting and looting on the sidelines. On October 17 alone, more than 500,000 people protested nationwide, according to government estimates. Al Jazeera reports that an analysis of Armed Conflict Location & Event Data found more than 1,200 protests and riots of 100 or more people took place across France between September 15 and October 30 over education, public services and the cost of living.
The intensity of the cycle is what stands out. ACLED chief executive Clionadh Raleigh said on October 19 that the organisation had recorded an average of 20.5 demonstrations a day in France over the past five years, but that the current cycle had jumped to almost 66 a day. Protest cycles typically last about 20 days, or 36 for major movements, she said; by ACLED's count this one had reached 45 days and was still going. "Almost a quarter of events, 24.2 percent, have been classified as riots, compared to a median of just 1.9 percent in previous cycles," she said, adding that only the unrest following the death of Nahel Merzouk in 2023 recorded a higher proportion.
The police response has drawn international criticism. On October 28, four United Nations experts mandated by the Human Rights Council expressed alarm at the "excessive use of force" by French authorities in dispersing the student protests, saying the scale of arrests and detention, affecting several thousand people, mainly minors, appeared disproportionate. In the northern city of Lille, a teenager lost a hand when a grenade exploded as school protesters clashed with police.
France is not protesting alone. Since mid-September, demonstrations over rising living costs, low wages and a lack of public services have broken out in 30 other European countries, from Portugal to Poland. Between September 15 and October 30, more than 1,700 protests and riots of 100 or more people took place across Europe, according to the ACLED analysis, with France followed by Spain (173), Italy (160), Germany (70) and Portugal (33). In Spain, tens of thousands rallied in early October after parliament rejected two emergency housing decrees on October 2, dealing a blow to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's minority government; in Italy and Portugal, cost-of-living and housing protests have brought clashes with police and mass marches in major cities.
Alberto Alemanno, professor of European Union law and policy at HEC Paris Business School, told Al Jazeera last month that while protests elsewhere had not reached the same scale, they may be a sign of discontent spilling over. "France is the epicentre of this movement … and there are signs now that this is spreading beyond France," he said. What remains unconfirmed is how far the contagion runs: the figures rest on ACLED's coding and on competing government and union counts, and no evidence yet links the various national movements organisationally. The common thread the data does show is underfunded education, rising living costs and unaffordable housing.
