Cost-of-living protests spread to Germany on Halloween as France braces for fresh unrest

By Pierre P Bairin, Sophie Tanno, CNN

(CNN) — Cost-of-living protests that began in France have spread to Germany where demonstrations that coincide with Halloween are underway on Saturday, with tens of thousands of people expected to turn out across the country.

The new German youth-led movement dubbed “Gen Z has got this!” is protesting against the high cost of living, underfunded schools and universities, environmental concerns and a potential reintroduction of mandatory military service. Protests are planned in major cities including Berlin, Frankfurt, Cologne and Munich.

Organizers of ‘Gen Z regelt’ planned the large day of action to coincide with Halloween, to maximize turnout and visibility.

“We are young people who no longer want to watch decisions being made about our future without us,” the movement states on its website. It adds that the intention is to protest peacefully and organizers instruct participants to keep their faces visible, even in Halloween costumes.

Extra German police officers have been deployed nationwide in preparation for the protest, and the luxury shops lining Berlin’s upmarket Kurfürstendamm shopping street have boarded up their windows as a precautionary measure.

The German youth movement follows a broader wave of protests that have swept Europe, including significant unrest in France, which has been hit by rioting and looting and is now facing another weekend of rallies.

The Yellow Vests movement has called for nationwide protests on Saturday, billed as the third act of demonstrations, following earlier protests on October 17 and 24. Students and some unions are also expected to join.

Warning of a “very high risk of public disorder,” France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez announced this week that demonstrations would only be authorized outside town centers, with 70,000 extra law enforcement officers deployed nationwide.

Halloween is adding a new complication to the protests, with Nuñez warning of separate calls for gatherings across France from 8 p.m. local time “by radical far-left groups and radicalized Yellow Vests.”

He said some messages invoked Halloween while calling for “revolution” and “insurrection”, describing them as incitements to serious public disorder and warning that the gatherings would be banned.

In recent days, the word “purge” has been circulating across social media platforms, a reference to the dystopian film franchise which depicts a world where all crime is legalized for a 12-hour period each year.

“At Halloween, the rules remain the same!” warned the Paris police on X, reminding people that concealing one’s face in public is punishable by a €150 ($170) fine, while carrying a weapon, even a fake one, can carry a sentence of up to three years in prison and a €45,000 fine.

The French protests began in late September, led by high school students demanding improvements to deteriorating school buildings, teacher shortages and a lack of resources, as well as changes to the university admissions system.

The protests then morphed into something bigger, with the Yellow Vests – which began as a movement against soaring fuel prices – among those taking to the streets.

The images of violence and looting from the October 17 protests are still haunting French officials. That day, more than 550,000 people took to the streets across France, according to the Interior Ministry more than 3,000 shops were attacked or looted, with some destroyed and over 2,700 people were arrested.

The interior minister said more than 1,000 law enforcement officers have been injured since the beginning of the protest movement.

Asked about the students injured during the protests, President Emmanuel Macron described the violence as a “collective failure”.

“I think no high school student started pushing for their demands expecting to suffer such terrible consequences. And I don’t know a single police officer who signed up to find themselves caught up in such terrible and violent moments either,” he told Youtuber Hugo Travers.

Saturday’s demonstration comes ahead of November 5, when all eyes will be on a nationwide strike and mobilization called by the inter-union coalition over rising living costs.

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