Category Archives: Protest

Protesters march in cities across France as unions stage general strike

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Hundreds of thousands demonstrate over cost of living and cuts to public services as 70,000 police officers deployed

Hundreds of thousands of people have marched in cities across France in the latest round of street demonstrations, as trade unions put pressure on the government with a general strike over the cost of living and cuts to public services.

Striking teachers, hospital staff and rail workers joined high school and university students in largely peaceful demonstrations in Paris and other cities on Thursday amid a high police presence of 70,000 officers.

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Palestine Action activists used similar tactics to the suffragettes, court told

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Lawyers tell supreme court decision to proscribe organisation as terrorist group is attack on freedom of speech and protest

Palestine Action was banned as a terrorist group after using tactics similar to – or less extreme than – the suffragettes, the UK’s highest court has heard.

Huda Ammori, a co-founder of Palestine Action, is challenging last year’s decision to proscribe the direct action organisation, placing it alongside groups such as al-Qaida and Boko Haram.

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French pupils resume school blockades as country braces for more protests

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Minister warns weeks without lessons are putting exams at risk as unions plan nationwide strike on Thursday

Dozens of high schools across France were blockaded again on Monday as the government braced for another tense week of protests over school conditions and the high cost of living.

The protests come amid warnings that weeks without lessons are putting some pupils’ school year and final exams at risk.

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Police detain 325 people at pro-Palestine Action protest at US embassy in London

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Arrests come ahead of Wednesday’s supreme court challenge to the ban on the direct action group

Police have said they arrested 325 people on Saturday at a demonstration outside the US embassy in London against the proscription of Palestine Action.

In updated arrest figures released on Sunday, the Metropolitan police said 320 people were detained outside the building in Battersea, south London, for allegedly expressing support for an organisation banned under the Terrorism Act.

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Attempted murder probe after petrol bomb thrown at French riot police

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Youth-led protests end with street violence in cities across France, Germany, Switzerland, Portugal and Albania

French officials have opened an investigation into the attempted murder of a police officer and Germany’s interior minister has called for harsh penalties after peaceful and mainly youth-led protests across Europe ended in violence.

In Portugal, police – some with dogs – cleared protest camps with baton charges, while security forces in Switzerland were attacked with paving stones.

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Tens of thousands protest against Narendra Modi regime in Delhi

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Led by Congress party, India’s opposition alliance channels anger over removal of 130 million names from voter roll

Thousands of opposition supporters have gathered in Delhi as protests against the Narendra Modi government continue to gather momentum.

Led by the Congress party, India’s opposition alliance has brought together supporters from across the country, amid growing anger over a large-scale revision of the country’s voter roll that has seen 130 million names erased.

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Police clash with masked rioters after largely peaceful protests across France

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Demonstrations also taking place in Germany, where officers fire teargas to disperse crowds as evening falls

Clashes erupted in Paris, Marseille and other cities on Saturday after tens of thousands of demonstrators, some in Halloween fancy dress, marched across France in a third wave of protests over the cost of living and deteriorating public services.

The interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, said about 150 planned demonstrations around the country had passed off peacefully, but police had encountered an “extraordinary” level of violence from some rioters as the rallies ended.

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Albania imposes $6,000 fine for demonstrators present at a protest that turns violent

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The fine – six times the average monthly salary – will apply to people present at violent protests, even if they don’t personally commit violent acts

Albania has introduced fines of more than $6,000 for demonstrators who participate in a protest that turns violent, even if they don’t personally commit violent acts, as the government tries to clamp down on the gatherings calling for the prime minister’s resignation.

The capital, Tirana, has been racked by months of anti-government protests that in recent days have deteriorated into pitched battles between the security forces and protesters.

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Protest leaders urge French pupils to keep barricading their schools

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Activists say struggle must go on until their ‘maximum’ demands are met over teacher shortages and building repairs

French children should continue to barricade their schools and take part in street protests, a student union said on Monday after the government announced a package of education measures to try to stem the crisis.

“Today we’re at the negotiating table, we’re able to negotiate with the government,” Pierre Sourzat of Les Lycéens told France Info television. “We’re in a power struggle and we still need to call for continued mobilisation to meet a maximum of our demands.”

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Portuguese police with dogs and batons dismantle housing protest camps

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More than 30 people arrested as officers clear at least 100 tents in central Lisbon and about 50 in Porto

Police in Portugal have dismantled housing protest camps in Lisbon and Porto, baton-charging campaigners in the early hours of Sunday and arresting more than 30 people.

The raids were the latest incident in days of clashes between police and campaigners who – inspired by similar camps in Spain – had sought to pitch tents in central squares to protest against the country’s deepening housing crisis.

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Hundreds of thousands march across France in protests over schools and policing

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Almost 1,000 arrested as police charge crowd in Paris and teargas used to stop protesters reaching other city centres

Hundreds of thousands marched in cities across France on Saturday in largely peaceful protests to support schoolchildren’s demands for more teachers and repairs to dilapidated buildings, as Emmanuel Macron faces a social and political crisis in his final months as president.

The prosecutor’s office in the southern city of Nice said on Sunday that 59 people had been taken into police custody, including 11 suspected of belonging to extreme-right groups. They were alleged to have gathered with the intent of committing violence. Some were arrested in two vehicles with masks, gloves, gas sprays and truncheons, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement to public broadcaster FranceInfo.

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Milan braces for more unrest as debate intensifies over Italy’s ‘lost generation’

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Protests and fringe violence expose sharp divide between marginalised and immigrant youth and those with greater prospects

Martina Miccichè was filming riot police kicking and beating a teenager with batons as they dragged him along Piazza del Duomo, the central Milan square hosting its cathedral, when she was struck by a flying object, causing a deep gash and bruising near her right eye.

The journalist had joined hundreds of mostly young people marching through the northern Italian city on Saturday afternoon to protest over soaring living costs and unaffordable housing, echoing the wider wave of economic discontent fuelling protests across Europe.

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Angry lawyers and bewildered defendants: the fallout from fast-tracking French rioting cases

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Politicians have called for ruthless sentencing, but lawyers blame the politicians for the poverty, and anger, behind their clients’ looting

Awa, 18, stood in the dock in the tribunal de Paris, a small, mute and bewildered figure seeming unable to understand, let alone answer, the simplest of questions.

The court was told she had joined young people who looted an Yves Saint Laurent store on Boulevard Saint Germain in Paris’s Left Bank late on Sunday and stripped it bare within minutes.

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‘America, this is a warning’: pro- Trump Maga media in a froth over Europe protests

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Fox News and others have toed president’s line – seemingly hoping unrest abroad will make people vote Republican

Donald Trump sought to capitalize on the scenes of unrest in France, telling a crowd in Kansas on Monday that “migrants” and “communists” were responsible, and that the scenes were “what the radical ‘Dumocrats’ want to do to America”.

As Republicans struggle to convince voters across the country ahead of November’s midterm elections, Trump’s allies in the conservative media have followed suit, seemingly hoping that the scenes in France can scare people to the polls.

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Indian court orders release of two leaders of Cockroach movement

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Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka spent a week in jail after defying restrictions on protests in Delhi amid government crackdown

An Indian court has ordered the release of two leaders of India’s Cockroach movement who were jailed last week amid a mounting state crackdown on youth-led protests.

The two leaders of the Cockroach Janta party (CJP) movement, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, had spent a week in Delhi’s Tihar jail after being arrested by Delhi police last week.

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Poland’s parliament votes to ease abortion ban but faces likely veto from president

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Measures would remove some penalties for those helping women access abortion but are ‘small-scale step’, say campaigners

Poland’s lower house of parliament has approved two bills aimed at loosening a near-total ban on abortions, in what campaigners have described as a “small-scale step” ahead of protests calling on the government to fulfil its promises to overhaul the country’s laws.

The new measures, which are likely to be vetoed by Poland’s nationalist president, would remove some of the criminal penalties for those who help women to access abortion care and allow terminations in cases of foetal abnormalities.

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Macron accuses Trump and other foreign leaders of ‘stupid comments’ about France unrest

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Leaders criticised for spreading misleading information as France prepares for further protests this weekend

Emmanuel Macron has accused Donald Trump and other foreign leaders of making “stupid comments” about France’s street unrest for political gain, as the country prepared for more protests this weekend.

Speaking during a visit to Qatar, the French president did not name names but said “manipulation of information” after Saturday’s riots had led to “comments that are as unacceptable as they are stupid, from many people, including foreign leaders”.

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Italy to deploy 500 troops to Milan after days of protests and looting

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Government planning tougher security measures as France also says military forces will be deployed

Italy’s government is sending 500 soldiers to Milan and vowed a “firm response from the state” after protests against the cost of living descended into clashes with police, vandalism and looting. Further demonstrations are planned on Saturday.

The government of the far-right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, also announced new security measures, including an offence of violent participation in ⁠a demonstration, tougher penalties for ⁠rioters, and financial liability for ​parents whose children take part in vandalism and looting.

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France imposes partial curfews in several cities, including parts of Paris

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Interior minister concedes police ‘lost control’ of weekend protests and says he is ‘fully resolved to restore public order’

Partial curfews have been issued for a number of French cities, including parts of Paris, after the government admitted police had “lost control” during violent weekend protests around the country.

Sébastien Lecornu, the French prime minister, said after an emergency cabinet meeting on Monday he was “fully resolved to restore public order” and had called for “local and partial” curfews if needed. There was “no question” of imposing a full curfew on entire cities, he said.

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Ferocious criticism from all sides underlines Macron’s isolation

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French president has compounded impression of arrogance with strategic errors – and consequences could be profound

The near-universal chorus of condemnation that greeted Emmanuel Macron’s address to the nation on Sunday, after one of the most violent days of rioting and looting in France’s recent history, was a stark reflection of just how weakened he now is.

Speaking from his office at the Élysée Palace, the president delivered an eight-minute speech expressing “anger and shame” after a weekend in which a town hall was set ablaze, 2,000-plus shops were looted, 2,300 people were arrested and 1,000 police injured.

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