Looting And Chaos Erupt In Germany, Molotov Cocktails In Paris, As Europe Slides Deeper Into Crisis
Europe appears to have been thrown into an accelerated timeline of crises colliding at once, whether far-left social unrest in France, which has spread to several other countries, the unfolding debt crisis in France, or the political crisis in Poland that erupted in the last 24 hours. The momentum is troubling and concerning.
For the third Saturday in a row, Paris looked like a city under lockdown. More than 40 metro and RER stations were closed, and shopkeepers along the route boarded up their windows with plywood or kept their shutters down.
France's seats of power, including the Élysée Palace, the prime minister's office, and the National Assembly, were heavily guarded, even though the authorized march took place several miles to the east. Overnight curfews also restricted access to Place de la République and Les Halles, two areas ransacked on Oct. 17.
Some 70,000 police and gendarmes were deployed nationwide, and Nuñez said 40,000 checks had been carried out on roads and in train stations, 15,000 of them in the Paris region, to intercept weapons. Face coverings, Halloween masks included, were banned around the demonstrations.
France
Tens of thousands of left-wing demonstrators marched along the eastern edge of Paris on Saturday, in a third straight weekend of nationwide protests marked by a Molotov cocktail attack on a gendarme, clashes in several major cities, and a call by far-left student unions for new blockades of high schools and universities from Tuesday.
As Etienne Fauchaire reported for The Epoch Times, the Interior Ministry counted 320,000 demonstrators across France, including 70,000 in Paris, down from 410,000 the previous Saturday and roughly 550,000 on Oct. 17, when rioters looted hundreds of shops. Organizers claimed nearly 500,000 participants, including 200,000 in the capital.
By 9 p.m., 565 people had been arrested nationwide.
At an evening press conference, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said every march had contained groups of rioters and looters, "many of them driven by the ultra-left and the radical far left," who attacked police with the goal of reaching the city centers "with unheard-of violence."
He listed Paris, Montpellier, Toulouse, Rennes, Marseille, Nantes, Angers, and Tours as cities where groups of several hundred people had tried to break through police lines with mortar fireworks, paving stones, and other projectiles, and said firefighters had to put out numerous fires.
The most serious incident took place at the end of the Paris march near Porte de Charenton, where a Molotov cocktail landed on the shield of a mobile gendarmerie unit and set a gendarme alight before his colleagues put out the flames. He ended up being slightly injured, Nuñez said.
"When you throw a Molotov cocktail at a police line, I call that attempted murder," the minister said, stating that everything would be done to identify the perpetrators.
Similar left-wing rallies took place in some 30 German cities on Saturday.
Germany
Beyond the political crisis in Poland and the US warning earlier today of a potential "mass casualty" incident in Moscow, another crisis appears to be unfolding in Germany on Halloween night: looting and chaos.
An initiative called "Gen Z regelt" ("Gen Z's got this") organized these protests "for education, health, climate protection and an affordable life" and opposing the return of military conscription.
Some protests in Germany also turned violent on Saturday night.
"The looting of stores has started in Frankfurt, Germany. Young first and second-generation migrants are attacking stores in the city," Poland-based digital news outlet Visegrád 24 wrote on X.
A lot more footage of the looting has surfaced on X in the last few hours:
"German police were attacked with a Molotov cocktail in the city of Frankfurt on Halloween night. Youths participated in looting and clashes with police, with much of the footage livestreamed on TikTok," Budapest-based news outlet Remix News & Views wrote on X.
Rest of Europe
In Portugal, thousands of demonstrators gathered in Lisbon once again to protest the housing crisis. The movement has faced criticism from the Portuguese right, which accuses left-wing and far-left groups of driving the protests.
In The Hague, Netherlands, protests broke out after calls to demonstrate circulated online. According to Dutch police, 34 people were arrested, and one officer was taken to hospital with suspected hearing damage after fireworks were thrown at police. As in Paris, many shops across the city had boarded up their windows amid fears of rioting.
On Oct. 30, large crowds took to the streets across Italy following a call to demonstrate by the Italian trade union USB. The union estimated that more than 1 million people participated in protests across 70 cities, while the Interior Ministry put the figure at 255,000. Violent clashes between demonstrators and police broke out in Rome, Turin, Mestre, Vicenza, and other cities, according to Corriere della Sera.
Europe's mounting crises point to a troubling deterioration in stability.
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