Cost of Living Protests Set to Expand Across Germany and France on Halloween

Street protests sweeping across Europe are expected to expand into Germany and reignite in France this Saturday, as authorities mobilise police to prevent potential looting and rioting on the margins of what organisers hope will be peaceful demonstrations.

Weeks of sometimes violent student demonstrations have rocked Italy, Spain, Portugal, Albania, and France. In France, activists have called for Halloween protests to express public anger over the cost of living and inadequate public services.

In Germany, a loose alliance of groups known as Gen Z regelt (Gen Z is sorting it) has called for supporters to rally in more than 30 cities. The demonstrations demand increased funding for schools, climate protection, and housing, while opposing any plans to reintroduce mandatory military service.

Alexander Throm, a member of the ruling conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) parliamentary group, wrote in the Handelsblatt business newspaper that “scenes like those in France must be prevented at all costs.”

However, Felix Banaszak, co-leader of the opposition Green party, cautioned against placing these youth protests under general suspicion in advance.

“The CDU’s rhetoric, which seeks to criminalise these protests pre-emptively and paint them as the work of marauding gangs, may even drive people towards radicalisation,” he told the RND media group.

Berlin’s police chief, Barbara Slowik Meisel, announced the deployment of an additional 1,500 officers in the capital, though she expressed little concern that people or property would come under attack.

“We have no concrete evidence of any coordinated looting operations being planned,” she stated.

Around 10,000 protesters, primarily pupils, students, and their parents, are expected at the Brandenburg Gate on Saturday afternoon, with another smaller gathering planned for the early evening in the Mitte district.

Large rallies have also been called in Cologne, Munich, Frankfurt, and Hamburg.

The team behind Gen Z regelt has used social media and its website to call on participants to exercise restraint, stating: “Our protest is peaceful, without exception. Violence goes against everything we stand for. Only through peaceful means can we achieve something together.”

By Friday, more than 160,000 people had registered on the website expressing their intention to attend the protests.

The federal pupils’ conference, a youth political lobbying group, has distanced itself from Saturday’s demonstrations, citing the initiative’s “unclear” organisational structure, which it says makes the events unpredictable.

The group plans to hold a separate protest in Berlin on 20 November, involving teachers and other youth movements, focusing on the marked decline in German school performance.

In France, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez described Saturday as a “very high risk” day, announcing that 70,000 police and gendarmes, including elite units, would be deployed to quell potential violence on the sidelines of the new wave of protests.

Nuñez stated late on Thursday that radical groups had called on social media for violent Halloween gatherings, warning that the biggest threat to public order would likely emerge after mainstream cost-of-living demonstrations had officially concluded.

“We are seeing many calls from the labour movement, the radicalised far left, and certain radicalised gilets jaunes [yellow vests], urging people to attend rallies on public streets starting at 8pm in many cities across France,” he said.

Nuñez added that the calls were “accompanied by various messages which are quite radical,” including some demanding “revolution.” He stated that authorities would “tolerate zero excesses” and promised an “extremely firm” security response.

Nuñez said that measures introduced last weekend to protect shops would be reinforced. While peaceful demonstrations would be authorised, most would not be permitted in city centres, where there is a risk of public disorder.

In Paris, two separate marches planned by unions and gilets jaunes through the city centre have been banned. Instead, police have authorised a single march in the far south-east. An appeal by organisers against the decision to exclude them from the centre was rejected late on Friday night.

The interior ministry reported that 410,000 people marched last Saturday, when a strong police presence mostly prevented a repeat of the widespread violence and looting that swept French cities during a first wave of mass protest on 17 October.

Unions and the gilets jaunes movement, protesting over low wages, the cost of living, and deteriorating public services, have joined school and university students calling for better learning conditions. A nationwide strike has been called for 5 November.

Student leaders stated that government measures to address their demands—including replacing a creaking university admissions platform and providing loans to local authorities for school renovations—did not go far enough.

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