Europe should now serve as a cautionary tale for America, showing what could happen if left-wing ideology takes hold and young people become convinced that they are entitled to free stuff and have the right to riot whenever they feel they have not received enough handouts.
Riots spread to Germany over the weekend of October 31, riot police surrounded Poland’s highest court during a constitutional standoff, and Albania’s student-led protests moved onto university campuses.
In Germany, tens of thousands of people rallied in dozens of cities in protests organized by the youth group Gen Z regelt (Gen Z Takes Charge), which opposes underfunding of schools, cuts to education, social services, culture and healthcare, rising living costs, and military conscription.
The daytime marches were largely peaceful. After dark in Frankfurt, masked rioters smashed storefronts and hurled stones, fireworks, pepper bombs and Molotov cocktails at police. More than 100 officers were injured and 54 people aged 13 to 29 were detained. Police said 17 shops were damaged and five of them were looted. Officers also arrested one person suspected of breaking into a gun store and stealing two weapons, which were later retrieved. Rioters also clashed with police in Cologne, Hamburg and Berlin.
Hesse Interior Minister Roman Poseck said “around 100 clearly identified left-wing extremists” infiltrated the Frankfurt march, and federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told the German tabloid Bild that “violent left-wing groups and troublemakers from migrant communities” hijacked the protests.
Police estimated that between 1,000 and 1,500 people took part in the violence, “predominantly from an immigrant background.” Dobrindt said border controls had been tightened before the protests over fears that extremist groups from abroad would exploit them. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, a Social Democrat, criticized Dobrindt for singling out migrants.
The German unrest followed weeks of student protests in France, where riots and looting on October 17 damaged shops, public buildings and businesses. French protests continued largely peacefully for a third weekend.
In Albania, daily protests that began at the end of May against a luxury resort planned by Jared Kushner along a coastal ecological preserve have become violent demonstrations against government corruption, with protesters demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama.
Police have fired rubber bullets and tear gas, and the clashes have produced dozens of arrests and hundreds of injuries among police and young protesters. Rama has offered cash bonuses to police on the front lines. He has also said the protests could hurt Albania’s bid to join the European Union by 2030 and claimed the protesters are linked to antifa.
On October 29, opposition Democratic Party lawmakers set off flares inside the parliament in Tirana, overturning chairs and filling the chamber with smoke. By November 1, the crisis had expanded to include new police powers that allow administrative travel restrictions on protesters without a judicial ban, and a reported rupture between Rama and detained Tirana Mayor Erion Veliaj that reaches into the governing Socialist Party. On November 2, students marched from lecture hall to lecture hall at Tirana’s universities, urging classmates to boycott classes.
In Poland, riot police were deployed to the Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw on October 30 after the court’s longest-serving judge, Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, suspended tribunal president Bogdan Święczkowski and took charge of the court. Święczkowski, a former deputy justice minister under the previous Law and Justice (PiS) government, had refused to seat a judge nominated by Prime Minister Donald Tusk and approved by parliament.
Police prevented Święczkowski from entering the grounds after his supporters cut through the fence with a power tool, and Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek announced he would seek to lift Święczkowski’s immunity from prosecution.
The tribunal stated on social media that “all persons participating in these actions are committing the crime of a coup d’etat.” President Karol Nawrocki, who was flying to Africa when the suspension was announced, ordered his plane to turn around and went directly to the tribunal, which he entered early Saturday as protesters gathered outside and riot police stood guard.
In a statement read outside the court, Nawrocki said there had been “a forcible takeover of a constitutional body.” Thousands of demonstrators waving Polish flags faced hundreds of riot police at the court’s entrances. The move came as Poles were preparing for All Saints’ Day on November 1, when families travel to honor the dead at their graves.
Tusk said his government would press ahead with efforts to restore the tribunal’s independence and called the PiS response “another stage in the process of destroying the rule of law in Poland.” The government says Święczkowski repeatedly broke the law. Nawrocki’s camp is hoping the crisis will erode Tusk’s parliamentary majority.
German student groups and labor unions have called new nationwide protests for November 3 and November 5, and Tusk has vowed to press ahead at the tribunal.
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