A man throws a plastic traffic cone through a burning barricade amid clashes during a day of demonstrations in France. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

France’s Prime Minister plans to meet unions on Wednesday (October 21, 2026) to discuss security and has vowed a “massive” police deployment at protests, following riots in the past week that led to curfews and arrests.

The Eurozone’s second-largest economy was rocked on the weekend by some of its worst rioting in recent years, just six months before voters head to the polls to elect a successor to President Emmanuel Macron.

Sebastien Lecornu will meet with representatives from five unions on Wednesday (October 21, 2026) morning to discuss “ways and means to guarantee the essential freedom to demonstrate” according to a letter sent to the organisations, which noted some were attempting to subvert the protests with “unacceptable acts”.

More protests centred over rising living costs are planned on Saturday (October 24, 2026), organised by the “Yellow Vest” movement and high school students, with another called for November 5 by labour unions.

School students have not been invited to the Wednesday (October 21, 2026) meeting.

Images of clashes, mobs looting stores and public buildings set ablaze last weekend prompted several countries, including the United States, China and Germany, to issue travel advisories for their citizens in France.

Facing angry lawmakers in parliament, Mr. Lecornu acknowledged that the security response had fallen short and promised a stronger approach ahead of the new wave of protests.

“The deployment for next Saturday (October 24, 2026) will be massive,” Mr. Lecornu said.

Arrests and investigations

French authorities announced on Monday (October 19, 2026) partial curfews in Paris and other cities, and Mr. Lecornu said fresh ones would be imposed on Tuesday (October 20, 2026) where needed.

The nighttime curfew in the capital, from 2100 GMT Tuesday (October 20, 2026), applied to Republique square in the centre-east and Les Halles shopping district in the centre.

A ban on public gatherings was also ordered for the Champs-Elysees, near several public buildings, and at train stations.

Paris police ordered a temporary ban on people carrying cans or bottles of petrol or gas, after mobs set fire to government buildings and shops last weekend.

Security forces arrested a man believed to be connected to the ultra-left over the burning down of a historic town hall in Limoges, whose destruction has become a symbol of the violence.

Authorities have faced criticism from parties across the political spectrum, with far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen describing the unrest as a “wake-up call” that exposed a “profound crisis” of authority.

Recent polling suggests Ms. Le Pen leading first-round presidential voting intentions by a wide margin and far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon emerging as the strongest contender for the runoff.

Mr. Lecornu has accused ultra-left radical groups of forging an “insurrectionary plan” that led to the riots.

In a sign of growing political scrutiny over the street violence, lawmakers from across France’s fractured parliament agreed on Tuesday (October 20, 2026) to launch a parliamentary inquiry into the unrest, including possible intelligence failures, policing tactics and the government’s preparedness.

Investors have sold off French debt in recent weeks amid rising doubts about the government’s ability to rein in spending.

Nearly 150 people had been jailed and more than 800 brought before the courts, according to the Justice Minister.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez offered to resign on Sunday (October 18, 2026), saying police “had lost control” during the unrest. Mr. Macron rejected his resignation and Mr. Nunez was also set to attend Wednesday’s (October 21, 2026) meeting with union representatives.

Other European countries have seen demonstrations over rising prices, with smaller clashes breaking out in Italy’s financial centre of Milan as well as in Belgium over the weekend.

U.S. President Donald Trump has seized on the unrest in France to amplify his anti-immigration and anti-Islam rhetoric, at a time when his Republican party is facing headwinds in upcoming midterm elections.

Mr. Trump launched into a lengthy tirade at a midterms rally on Monday (October 19, 2026) in Kansas, saying France was being “conquered, looted, and burned to the ground by migrants, jihadists, and communists”.

Several analysts have countered Mr. Trump’s rhetoric, saying immigration was not a driving force in France’s unrest.

Published – October 21, 2026 10:04 am IST

This photograph shows a fire burning and destroying the city hall after a group of individuals forced entry into the building during ongoing protest action against the “high cost of living”, in Limoges, central France on October 17, 2026.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Rising fuel costs, discontent with the state of schools, declining public services and a housing crisis have created perfectly stormy weather for an autumn of protests in Europe.

Crowds have taken to the streets for weeks in major cities, resulting in arrests, looting, injuries, and violence across France, Italy and Albania. In Spain and Portugal, tent camps have sprung up in protests against unattainable rents and housing costs.

Young people “feel disappointed with the [social] model and experience a strong sense of uncertainty and a lack of control,” said María Silvestre, professor of sociology at the University of Deusto in Spain. “And when specific situations come together, a spark suddenly ignites that is capable of channelling that discontent and driving people into the streets.”

Cities have turned into battlefields as several top EU economies, including France, Italy and Spain, approach pivotal elections, while far-right parties have made electoral gains in Germany and could do so elsewhere. It also comes as Europe faces a critical moment in its support for Ukraine, with President Donald Trump making overtures to President Vladimir Putin even as Russia is blamed for increasingly frequent hybrid attacks in NATO countries.

Right-wing politicians have seized on the chaos. While protests in France have appeared broad-based, Mr. Trump portrayed immigrants as responsible for the destruction, writing on his Truth Social platform: “The migrants have taken over France. They must CLOSE THE BORDERS, FAST!” on Monday (October 19, 2026).

Many of the protests have been fuelled by frustrated young people. Other elements including black-clad, masked agitators have fomented violence, but French authorities and police have not blamed immigrants.

A look at what’s driving the unrest.

Students say education resources are dwindling

In France, which has a centuries-old tradition of popular protest, high schoolers have staged blockades and demonstrations for more than three weeks, demanding more resources for schools they call understaffed and dilapidated, especially in lower-income neighbourhoods.

The protests then broadened as France’s CGT labour union and other activists joined in while students paused for a fall break. The movement now includes demands over rising living costs and public services.

Despite hundreds of thousands of people marching peacefully, the weekend’s unrest led to 2,400 arrests and serious disturbances in parts of France, including looting in Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Bordeaux. In Limoges, flames engulfed the 19th-century City Hall and nearly destroyed the building. Some schools were set on fire. As students and rioters threw firebombs and law enforcement responded with tear gas, hundreds have been injured.

French President Emmanuel Macron condemned Saturday’s (October 17, 2026) violence, accusing far-left activists of trying to foment chaos by attacking buildings and police.

“Those who looted will have to pay for the damage, and those who sought to bring down the Republic will be held accountable,” Mr. Macron said Sunday (October 18, 2026) in a rare televised address.

In Spain, elementary and secondary schoolteachers began an indefinite strike in Madrid last week to demand better pay and working conditions. Discontented teachers staged similar walkouts elsewhere in Spain this year.

Unaffordable housing stymies young people

In Madrid’s central Puerta del Sol, tarpaulin tents have blanketed the square for weeks to protest rising housing costs, sparked by the eviction of Maricarmen, an 87-year-old woman who later died while hospitalized. Smaller protest camps followed in other Spanish cities.

Some things have changed since the encampment began: public pressure led the ruling Socialist government to approve affordable housing measures, but a lack of support in Parliament meant they didn’t pass, triggering a snap election announced by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez for November. A general strike will also take place in November — the first in 14 years.

Major housing protests also have taken place in Barcelona, a focal point of Spain’s overtourism and housing challenges.

In Spain, the minimum wage is 1,221 euros ($1,370), while the average monthly rent for an 80-square-meter apartment is around 1,130 euros (about $1,270), according to an analysis by the business newspaper Expansión.

“Most of my paycheck goes to the rent. My roommate struggles to make ends meet just like I do,” said Diana Manzanares, a 20-year-old waitress at the Madrid encampment. “This is my reality and the reality of most of us living in this city.”

Similar housing protests have sprung up in Portugal’s largest cities, Lisbon and Porto.

Untenable living costs as inflation rises in Italy

“Italia in Piazza,” or Italy in the Streets, has galvanized thousands of demonstrators, voicing demands for better employment, healthcare, education, and access to housing, as well as higher wages to deal with rising costs. Inflation in Italy rose to 4.2 per cent in September, surpassing the eurozone’s 3.8%, according to government data.

The peaceful marches turned violent in three northern cities: In Turin and Bologna, and in Milan — Italy’s finance and fashion capital, where rioters clashed with police, looted stores and set property on fire.

In Milan, 271 people were arrested during two days of unrest — most of them minors, police said. Fourteen members of the security forces were reportedly injured.

And now a newly formed group calling itself the “Oct. 17 Movement” has announced what it describes as a “permanent mobilization,” calling supporters to demonstrate every Saturday at 3 p.m. in cities across Italy, starting in Milan.

Students in Albania join anti-corruption protests

In Albania, anti-government protests continued Sunday (October 18, 2026) for a sixth consecutive day in Tirana, featuring more clashes between demonstrators and police. The violence escalated after high school and university students joined the broad anti-government “Flamingo” movement calling for Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama to resign.

Mr. Rama has condemned the protests, saying participants had been “ideologized and radicalized” by antifa, an umbrella term for loosely organised far-left militants in the United States, where President Donald Trump has designated the movement a terrorist organisation.

Ending corruption is a major demand of the Albanian civic movement — named for the natural habitat of flamingos in an area where Mr. Rama’s government agreed to allow a major luxury tourism development linked to Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law. They also want protections for healthcare, education, and public pensions, according to its website.

In Serbia, university students who have led mass anti-corruption protests for nearly two years are now challenging a return by the Balkan country’s powerful populist leader Aleksandar Vucic in early parliamentary elections this month.

The former authoritarian president is eyeing a return as prime minister after the Oct. 25 vote. The youth-backed Students’ List party is believed to be running close to Vucic’s party, making the outcome uncertain and fuelling fears of possible violence.

U.S. President Donald Trump used the protests roiling France to score some quick political points on Monday (October 19, 2026), as the upcoming midterm elections force his Republican party to face strong headwinds.

At a rally in Kansas, the U.S. President launched into a lengthy tirade about France, which he said was being “conquered, looted, and burned to the ground by migrants, jihadists, and communists.”

“And we’re not going to let that happen to this country,” he added.

While speaking with reporters previously in the day, Mr. Trump recalled an exchange with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron: “I told him a long time ago, you’re making a big mistake in France. You’re letting everybody from the world come in…Paris is going to be a Muslim city very soon.”

Earlier on Monday (October 19, 2026), the 80-year-old President wrote on his Truth Social platform: “The migrants have taken over France. They must CLOSE THE BORDERS, FAST!”

Cost-of-living demonstrations broke out across France over the weekend, with many devolving into looting and violent conflict, prompting officials to institute partial curfews on Monday (October 19, 2026).

While the French protests were inspired by soaring inflation, Trump has molded the violent clashes with police into evidence in favor of the anti-immigration policies he used to successfully campaign for reelection in 2024.

“They’re taking this French crisis and turning it into a campaign argument,” J.C. Lintzenich, a senior fellow with the German Marshall Fund think tank, told AFP.

Conservative talking points

Opinion polls heavily favour Mr. Trump’s rival Democratic Party in the November 3 midterm elections, which will determine who will take control of Congress.

With just two weeks to go before Americans go to the polls, Mr. Trump has grasped any strategy he can to compel voters to support the Republican party and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.

“Since the beginning of the MAGA movement, Europe has been an extension of the US political battlefield, so it’s not surprising that when there are events like the unrest from October 17, the political machine gets moving,” Justin Vaisse, a professor of U.S. foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University, told AFP.

As videos of France’s unrest began surfacing on social media, Vice President J.D. Vance wrote Saturday (October 17, 2026) on X: “Western liberals imported the third world into France…they ignored fundamental questions of assimilation and compatibility.”

Right-wing U.S. media personalities, including Glenn Beck, Benny Johnson, Nick Sortor and Jack Posobiec made similar points, blaming immigrants from Muslim-majority countries for causing a crisis in Western identity.

“The riots are viewed as validation of the warnings against immigration in general and Muslim immigration, if such a thing exists,” Vaisse said.

Celia Belin, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and head of its Paris office, views the commentary as an “export of domestic policies” from a US administration that openly supports nationalist parties in Europe.

She told AFP that Mr. Trump and his allies “rushed into this argument, the same one that Vance had presented in Munich” in 2025, in a controversial speech described as a US culture war against Europe, with the goal of “fanning the flames.”

Polling priorities

Experts note that this rhetorical strategy, while it may have succeeded in 2024, is not necessarily what US voters want to hear these days.

“When you look at the campaign ads here — I’m in South Carolina right now — it’s about healthcare, domestic issues,” Lintzenich said.

“The international element is a blip on the radar, and Ukraine, and Iran, and other ongoing national security issues rate higher than the current French instability,” he continued.

A Pew Research poll this month found the economy plays an important role in the choice of 82% of U.S. voters, a far higher number than immigration (59%) or race-related issues (36%).

Though Mr. Trump has followed through on his 2024 campaign promise to crack down on immigration, he has fared less successfully on his other promise to tamp down on inflation, with his tariff policies and war with Iran spiking prices across the economy, plunging his approval rating to record lows.

Vaisse said using linking U.S. identitarian rhetoric with the events in France “is not going to win a single vote” for Republicans, though it could “mobilize the base” to vote.

Published – October 20, 2026 07:35 am IST

Masked protesters stand next to burning bicycles amid clashes during a demonstration against the cost of living and rising fuel prices near the Place de la Republique in Paris as part of nationwide protests called by the “Yellow Vests” movement, joined by French high school and university students, teachers and parents demanding better school conditions and government action, as well as labour unions, workers, farmers and retirees, France, on October 17, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

French President Emmanuel Macron. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

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French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday (October 18, 2026) voiced the public’s “anger” and “shame” over rioting and looting during nationwide protests against rising living costs and poor conditions in schools. At least 1,800 people have been arrested.

“Those who looted will have to pay back for the damage, and those who sought to bring down the Republic will be held accountable,” Mr. Macron said in a televised address to the nation.

He blamed “unrestrained violence” on “insurrectionist elements from radical far-left groups, joined by numerous criminals.”

Mr. Macron has earlier held an emergency meeting with senior government officials, a day after masked groups set fires and attacked public buildings, including city halls, in several cities. He said he had instructed prefects to work with Mayors to protect public buildings and businesses in the coming weeks, including by banning protests when necessary.

Flames engulfed the 19th-century City Hall in the city of Limoges, in central France, causing its roof to collapse and nearly destroying the building.

Hundreds of protesters gathered again on Sunday (October 18, 2026) at the Place de la République in Paris amid a heavy police presence. Officers used tear gas as tensions flared sporadically in the neighbourhood, with small groups of people trying to set bicycles and trash bins on fire.

“The right to protest is a fundamental right. Deliberately and collectively sowing disorder through violence is not,” Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez wrote on X, citing the looting of hundreds of businesses in cities including Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Bordeaux.

About 5,50,000 people took part in protests across France, according to authorities, while organisers put the figure at about 8,00,000. Demonstrators answered calls from a labour union, student organisations and activists hoping to revive the “yellow vest” movement, which emerged in 2018 to protest social injustice.

Mass protests in France are often marred by violence on the fringes of otherwise peaceful marches, leading to clashes with police. The arrest tally reported Sunday (October 18, 2026) approached the nearly 2,000 recorded nationwide during a single day of yellow vest protests in December 2018.

One person died of a heart attack, Paris police said in a statement, without providing details. The Paris prosecutor’s office said it was investigating.

Parisians deplore shattered shops and a damaged square

Dislodged cobblestones, shattered storefronts and broken glass littered the area around Paris’ Place de la République on Sunday (October 18, 2026). Looting and damage were also reported in other tourist and shopping districts.

Paris police said 855 people were arrested in the capital region. The city’s prosecutor’s office said 557 remained in police custody.

“I am actually stunned by the level of destruction and violence that was expressed,” said government employee Marie Peyreigne, 57, wondering what had led to the mayhem.

Parisians inspecting the damage photographed the partially dismantled base of the square’s central monument, a statue of Marianne, a symbol of France.

Jean Foissy, 74, said he had wanted to join the protest but encountered “a wall of riot police and fires everywhere” and returned home.

“I was very scared,” he said. “I’ve been a Parisian since I was born, so when I got here, it almost made me want to cry because I find it so bad, it hurts me.”

Margaux Eude, 26, said she supported the protest movement but “didn’t think it would escalate like this.”

“It’s the troublemakers who came, and it breaks my heart because it delegitimises the movement,” she said.

Political leaders trade blame ahead of presidential election

Political leaders across the spectrum sought to parlay the fallout of Saturday’s (October 17, 2026) riots into political capital, looking ahead to next spring’s presidential election.

Far-right leader and presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen criticized Macron’s centrist government as “exhausted, disoriented and seemingly incapable of doing anything other than commenting on its own powerlessness,” in a video posted Sunday on social media.

Far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, for his part, accused Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu of “playing with fire,” alleging that “by banking on degradation, you have only succeeded in uniting all youths and workers’ unions.”

Mr. Mélenchon, who joined the Paris march Saturday, insisted that “my message is clear: those who share our fight have no business in looting or destruction.”

U.S. President Donald Trump posted “France is burning!” on his Truth Social platform, apparently linking the unrest to “the immigration of people from an entirely different world.”

“Close your Borders and take control, before it is too late!” he wrote.

French authorities and police have not linked immigrants to the rioting and have repeatedly attributed some of the violence to “radical far-left groups” and other people who joined to loot.

Published – October 19, 2026 07:00 am IST

President Donald Trump speaks at a dinner at his Mar-a-Lago club on October 17, 2026
| Photo Credit: AP

Workers hold damaged glass, the day after clashes during a national day of demonstrations against the cost of living and rising fuel prices, in Marseille, France, on October 18, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters