From Paris to Lisbon: Why Europe is witnessing public anger, protests?

French President Emmanuel Macron went on national television from the Élysée Palace yesterday to ask for "calm and order" after riots that have spread across the country. He spoke of "anger and shame" among the public and drew a line between the "legitimate demands" of peaceful marchers, who protested rising fuel prices, the cost of living and failing public services, and the "unbridled" destruction wrought by rioters, looters and agitators. "Nothing justifies" the violence, he said, and those responsible would face prosecution and be made to pay.

What he did not offer was a concession. Macron hinted at diplomatic efforts in the Persian Gulf to bring down gas prices but announced no change of policy, appealing for order over street protest. Opposition leaders and union officials were quick to say the address had nothing to say about the grievances behind the unrest.

The government's practical response came elsewhere. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu convened an emergency cabinet meeting to examine security failures, while police used tear gas, water cannon, stun grenades and batons to disperse crowds in major cities. The interior ministry reported about 2,400 arrests nationwide and nearly 1,000 injured officers after Saturday's clashes, seven of them severely. To blunt the student-led protests that began the unrest, ministers promised 3,000 substitute teachers for chronically understaffed schools and a freeze on proposed increases in university registration fees. Prefects and mayors were told to draw up local plans to protect commercial districts and public infrastructure.

The damage is among the worst urban destruction in modern French history. An estimated 1,500 businesses were looted across Paris, Marseille, Lille, Bordeaux and Strasbourg, with losses running to hundreds of millions of dollars. Limoges lost much of its 19th-century city hall to arson. Municipal offices in Marseille and Lille were ransacked, and Lyon's tourist office was burned to the ground.

Politics has moved faster than repair. Lecornu and Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez blamed "ultra-left" agitators and delinquents, singling out Jean-Luc Mélenchon's La France Insoumise for stoking hostility towards the police. Mélenchon rejected the charge and accused the government of incompetence and of fostering "organised chaos". Marine Le Pen called the administration "exhausted and disoriented" and said legitimate social demands had been hijacked. National Assembly President Yaël Braun-Pivet asked for a parliamentary inquiry into policing and security failures. With a presidential election approaching, each camp in a divided three-block parliament is reading the riots as evidence against the others.

France may be the epicentre rather than the exception. In fact, it has turned into a catalyst for a Europe-wide movement rooted in shared structural complaints: cost-of-living pressure that has outlasted the inflation surge, stagnant wages, underfunded education and acute housing shortages. In many cities, speculation, fast-rising rents and corporate purchases of homes have priced out the young and working households. The strain arrives in an unusually crowded electoral calendar, creating further headache for governments.

The map of unrest bears this out. Italy, Spain and Portugal seem particularly vulnerable. In Milan, a demonstration against living costs turned violent when masked rioters hurled stones and paving blocks at police, set barricades alight and badly damaged vehicles in Piazza Duomo. Fifty people were detained, and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni condemned the violence. In Portugal, tens of thousands marched in Lisbon and Porto over stagnant wages and rents that rose 124 per cent between 2015 and 2024. Protesters have kept a tent encampment in Lisbon's Rossio Square, while Prime Minister Luís Montenegro warned against importing instability from abroad.

Spain offers the sharpest political consequence. Anger over rents, symbolised by the eviction of an 87-year-old woman facing a 230 per cent increase, produced tent camps in Madrid. After parliament rejected emergency housing legislation, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called a snap general election for November 29. In Belgium, police used water cannons and tear gas on student protests over university fees in Brussels and Liège. In Albania, demonstrations in Tirana over university conditions and corruption turned into heavy clashes, with police firing rubber bullets as rioters burned cars and damaged public buildings.

The pause in France may be brief. A two-week school half-term gives the authorities temporary respite, but the CGT and other major unions, alongside gilets jaunes groups (the yellow-vest grassroots protest movement), have called for joint demonstrations on November 5. Early mobilisations are being reported in Greece, Germany and Austria. France remains split over fiscal debt policy as its own presidential race nears, and Spain heads to the polls within weeks.