(London = Yonhap News) Correspondent Kim Ji-yeon = On the 31st (local time), protests across Germany spread into violence and looting occurred in stores.
According to the DPA news agency and BBC, a youth group called Genjiregelt (Generation Z will solve the problem) held protests in more than 30 cities, demanding improved educational environments, reduced living hardships, and the realization of social justice.
Authorities in Frankfurt, Munich, and Berlin counted a total of 18,000 people participating, and German media reported that tens of thousands of people demonstrated nationwide.
The protests largely proceeded without conflict, but after dark, violent acts broke out in some areas of Frankfurt, Berlin, Cologne, and Hamburg, including attacking police officers, destroying stores, and stealing items.
According to Frankfurt police, a special response team was deployed as riots broke out in the city center that night. Protesters threw Molotov cocktails at police officers and broke the windows of several stores, including clothing stores and liquor stores.
One gun store was looted with its windows broken. Afterwards, police arrested one suspect and recovered two weapons.
Roman Pozek, the interior minister of Hesse state, where Frankfurt is located, said it was a shame that the protests ended in this way, claiming that 100 people identified as left-wing extremists had infiltrated the protests.
“We remember the images of looting, burning of houses and police vehicles, and attacks on police officers in France,” he said, adding, “We must not make an example of this.”
A Frankfurt police spokesman said more than 30 people had been arrested and additional personnel had been deployed to stores that needed extra protection. It has not been accurately calculated how many people were injured as a result of the violent acts.
In Cologne, violent acts such as throwing bottles and bicycles at police officers occurred near the central train station.
Cologne police chief Johannes Hermans said, "It is very unfortunate that extremists who have no intention of violence have infiltrated young people who wanted to protest peacefully for the future."
In Berlin, 27 police officers were injured and 56 people were arrested, Berlin police said.
In Hamburg, people dressed in black set off firecrackers and set fire to barricades. Public broadcaster NDR said 120 people were arrested.
In France, where large-scale weekend protests took place for the third week, the protests were generally peaceful with 320,000 people gathered across the country, but clashes broke out in the capital Paris, Lyon, Marseille, and Toulouse, and about 560 people were arrested.
Most of the protesters marched in a happy atmosphere, dressing up in humorous costumes and playing exciting music for Halloween.
However, at dusk, some people began to engage in violence by throwing firebombs and other weapons at police officers, and the police responded with flash bangs and tear gas.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said that one police officer was injured after being hit by a Molotov cocktail, and that hundreds of people attacked police by throwing or firing objects at them.
During protests in Italy, sporadic clashes between police and protesters occurred in places such as Rome and Turin.
Citizens continued to express their dissatisfaction not only in Germany and France, but also throughout Europe.
Thousands of people marched in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, to protest the housing crisis. Protesters demanded that the government cancel the rental bill under consideration in Congress, saying it would worsen the housing crisis. The police deployed dozens of people in the early morning of the 1st to dismantle the tents that protesters had set up in the square.
