Geopolitics & money, explained calmly
Five countries, five sets of grievances
France, Belgium, Italy and Albania have seen clashes in the past fortnight, and Serbia’s government has just lost an election. It looks like one wave, but the timelines and grievances point to separate stories happening at the same time.
Saturday 17 October. The Interior Ministry counted 550,000 people; organisers, including the CGT union, said about 800,000. Robert Pape’s range of “550,000 to 800,000” runs from one count to the other. Reporting varies because authorities and organisers count differently, so we print both. The Ministry later listed 2,628 arrests and 1,144 police and gendarmes injured. Protesters briefly got inside the Marseille and Lille town halls, Limoges town hall was set on fire, and a Hermès boutique in Marseille was looted.
Saturday 24 October. The Ministry counted 410,000; the CGT said 800,000. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said 70,000 police and gendarmes were deployed, and that evening he put arrests at nearly 1,000. The Ministry’s provisional tally at 07:30 on 25 October was 1,314. These are interpellations, not people held in custody.
In a Cluster17 poll of 3,000 people for L’Opinion (19–22 October), 81% mainly blamed casseurs and looters with no link to the protesters; 14% blamed the government and 2% the protesters. Support for the movement was 53%, down 4 points since 7–8 October.
On 24 October about 400 people (police count) joined a youth march in Brussels. In Saint-Gilles police used tear gas and a water cannon and held 9 people (police, via RTBF and Reuters). The grievances are Belgian: the federal “Arizona” coalition, cuts to French-language schools and alleged police violence. Reuters called the clashes “much smaller and less violent” than the previous week’s.
The same day, clashes broke out in Rome, Turin and Bologna; in Rome, 96 people were taken to police headquarters (Il Post). Marchers cited the cost of living, fuel prices, rearmament, Palestine and education. On 20 October the cabinet approved 500 extra soldiers for Milan, without judicial-police powers.
A protest on 30 May 2026 against fences around a Kushner-linked luxury resort site near a protected wetland marked the start of the wider movement (AFP). In April the land’s declared value rose from €5.5m to €122m; by June, the anti-corruption prosecutor had opened a probe. Students joined on 13 October, when protesters broke into Tirana City Hall. On 17 October a fire set during a protest damaged the Supreme Court building. AP reported 271 arrests in the seven days to 24 October.
Serbia’s story is a ballot-box one. Reuters traces the opposition movement to protests after 16 people died when a station canopy collapsed in Novi Sad in November 2024. In a snap election on 25 October, its Student List won 52.33% to 39.44% for Aleksandar Vučić’s list on the electoral commission’s (RIK) preliminary count, with turnout at 68.76%. Vučić conceded on election night. The last Ipsos poll, commissioned by Vučić’s list, had put his list 7.4 points ahead.
Data
Protesters in France on two Saturdays, by who counted
How to read this
On 25 October Pape wrote that France’s unrest is spreading to Brussels, Rome, Turin, Bologna and Milan, and called it “Violent Populism”.
Belgium and Italy flared on the same day as France, but over their own grievances. Albania’s movement began in May and Serbia’s in November 2024, both before France’s.
Belgium and Italy flared on the same day as France, but over their own grievances.
Our reading of the chronologyFour Lenses
Views, not facts. Each view is labelled with what it covers; counterpoints come from data or officials.
War-driven fuel costs and political strain are behind the unrest, and Americans should pay attention ahead of a possibly contested US midterm. He cites a survey by an unnamed French pollster whose details are behind his paywall.
Counterpoint · French Interior Ministrythe 24 October marches went ahead, most attempted attacks were stopped, and the Ministry blames radical far-left groups, not the marchers.
A 26 October Multipolarity post says the sequence in Albania “looks like a textbook case of a colour revolution”, yet concedes: “There is no hard evidence that they were astroturfed or stoked by nefarious outside powers.” It relays an argument Pilkington made on the Multipolarity Podcast last week: that Washington’s partisan turf war is spilling into Albania, with Trump’s opponents siding with the protesters because the resort is Kushner-linked. On X on 23 October he also criticised Republican Rep. Joe Wilson and other self-described conservatives, accusing them of stoking chaos in Albania and meddling in Serbia’s election. On X on 25 October, Pilkington found it strange that Vučić conceded before a full count. Earlier that day he relayed an anonymous ruling-party official’s projection of a Vučić-party lead, which the preliminary count contradicted.
Counterpoint · US Congress, RIKSupport for the protesters’ rights cut across parties, and Republicans spoke first: Reps Joe Wilson, Robert Aderholt and Keith Self on 17 October, Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on 21 October. That doesn’t fit a purely anti-Trump split; Pilkington himself has criticised Wilson. In Serbia, RIK’s preliminary count and a separate Ipsos/CeSID projection from a sample both matched Vučić’s concession.
He hasn’t commented on Europe’s protests. On 20 October he argued oil markets were rejecting official claims that prices would fall after the US midterms.
In a February Substack post on the 1930s, he described how bad economic times led to internal conflicts over wealth and a turn to more populist and autocratic leaders.
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Your wallet
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Brent crude futures (ICE December contract) settled at $116.72 a barrel on Friday 23 October, the highest close since 29 April (Reuters via CNA). Italian marchers cite fuel prices.
The link is indirect. The cost of living is a grievance in France and Italy; our 25 October France explainer has French food-price data.
The link is indirect: protests don’t set loan or deposit rates (see the France explainer).
Reflection Point
Between 17 and 25 October, France, Belgium, Italy and Albania saw protests with clashes, and Serbia’s opposition won an election; Albania’s and Serbia’s movements began months or years earlier.
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