Hundreds of thousands march in France and Germany over cost of living

Police in Berlin and Frankfurt reported injuries, arrests and looting after the protests turned violent, and France's interior minister called a molotov attack on a gendarme attempted murder.

Hundreds of thousands of young people joined cost-of-living protests across France and Germany on 31 October. The French interior ministry put the nationwide turnout at 320,000, while the German movement GenZ regelt said some 120,000 attended. In Frankfurt, police reported violent riots at the Konstablerwache, with molotov cocktails thrown at emergency personnel.

Gen Z regelt demands more money for schools, addiction help and psychotherapy, measures against rising living costs, and rejects conscription and expanded state surveillance. In Berlin, a march at Rosenthaler Platz shaped by left-radical groups turned violent, with firecrackers and fireworks set off and eggs and bottles thrown. Police said the march involved numerous criminal offences, with 27 officers slightly injured and up to 56 people arrested. The arrests were described as temporary.

Many of those marching in France wore Halloween fancy dress, in what organisers described as a third wave of cost-of-living protests. The organisers said the demonstration of 31 October gathered 500,000 people. Clashes broke out in Paris and other cities. In the capital, a molotov cocktail was thrown at a mobile gendarme, and Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez called the attack an attempted murder, saying the gendarme had not stopped his service.

In Frankfurt's city centre, shops were looted, among them the shoe shop Snipes on the Zeil and a gun store in the Hasengasse. Police arrested suspects and seized two weapons after the attack on the weapons shop. Roman Poseck, interior minister of the state of Hesse, said around 100 clearly identified left-wing extremists had infiltrated the protest and massively attacked the police. He called the demonstration's ending shameful.

The organisers of GenZ regelt distanced themselves from the violence, saying that extremist groups and anti-constitutional symbols had no place with them, and neither did racism or hate speech, no matter from which side. In Berlin, a 20-year-old student named Milla told the news agency AFP that solidarity mattered. "I think it's really important to show solidarity with all the other protests currently happening across Europe, including in France", she said.