Unrest spilled across European capitals Saturday as demonstrators clashed with police, set fires and smashed property from the Mediterranean to the North Sea.
In Brussels, Belgium, officers turned water cannons and tear gas on student-built barricades blocking city streets. High-end retailers and luxury boutiques across the capital boarded up their shops, bracing for a repeat of the looting and destruction seen the previous week. Protesters tried to ignite a pile of rental scooters, road signs and bicycles, but police stopped them. During that incident, one officer hit and kicked a protester, witnesses said. At least five arrests were made, though police said no major incidents had occurred.
Italy faced its most widespread unrest, with stores in Naples, Rome, Turin, Bologna, Florence and Milan boarding up windows ahead of expected looting. Milan went on the highest alert, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni deploying 500 soldiers alongside drone surveillance, railway station checks and rapid-response units. The U.S. Embassy and Consulates in Italy put the country on high alert and urged Americans to avoid Piazza Duomo in Milan and major commercial streets.
Violence erupted in Rome as demonstrators threw bottles and launched fireworks at officers, while several street signs were torn down and defaced. In Turin, protesters hurled rocks and smoke bombs at police blocking their path, prompting officers to deploy tear gas. Demonstrators also violently clashed with police in Florence.
Spain saw over 25,000 people march in Madrid demanding pension system reform. The scene turned uglier in Barcelona, where masked demonstrators smashed a glass kiosk and started street fires in footage shared widely on X.
“We already have the savages breaking and burning urban furniture in Barcelona,” X user Fatima Martinez posted Saturday.
Jihadists have reportedly called for attacks on demonstrators and police officers during demonstrations in Spain and Portugal.
Albania joined the wave of unrest as protesters rallied outside the Ministry of Education in Tirana to demand lower tuition fees, greater state investment in education and the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama. The crowds set fire to dumpsters and couch cushions that Rama had placed as a symbolic invitation to dialogue with students. More than 2,500 police officers were deployed in the capital, where they used water cannons on the crowd.
The disorder followed days of intense protests in France that saw stores ransacked and vehicles burned, setting a pattern that neighboring countries scrambled to prevent. French unrest had already prompted Italian retailers to take protective measures before Saturday’s demonstrations began.
The weekend violence marked an escalation in coordinated European protest activity, with governments deploying military personnel, tear gas and water cannons in multiple countries simultaneously. Security alerts for American citizens underscored the international concern as embassies tracked the spreading disorder.