Photo: Sebastian Kasten / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
German leaders have promised stiff punishment after a day of largely peaceful youth-led protests over the cost of living turned violent on Saturday night, with shops looted in central Frankfurt and police clashing with groups of rioters in Berlin, Cologne and Hamburg. In Frankfurt alone, police said 54 people were arrested and about 100 officers were injured, one of them seriously after being hit in the face by a stone.
From peaceful march to a night of looting
The marches were called by a campaign group named Gen Z regelt, roughly “Gen Z takes charge”, which is demanding affordable living, more money for schools, addiction services and psychotherapy, and an end to public spending cuts. It also opposes compulsory military service. Authorities in Frankfurt, Munich and Berlin counted up to 18,000 marchers, about half the organisers’ own estimate.
In Frankfurt, police put the afternoon crowd at about 8,000. They broke up the march at around 6.20 pm after fireworks were set off and stones were thrown at officers. Later in the evening, groups moved through the Zeil shopping street and nearby lanes, smashing shop windows, setting bins on fire, building barricades and throwing firecrackers and petrol bombs at police. Five shops were looted, including shoe stores, and a gun shop was attacked; officers arrested several people there and seized weapons. Calm returned at about 3 am.
- Frankfurt: 54 arrests of people aged 13 to 29, 87 criminal complaints, 366 people checked and more than 1,200 ordered to leave the area, according to police and the Hesse interior ministry.
- Berlin: 27 officers injured and up to 56 people briefly detained during an evening demonstration, police said.
- Hamburg: fireworks set off and barricades set alight, with about 120 people arrested according to public broadcaster NDR.
- Cologne: bottles and a bicycle thrown at officers near the main railway station, police said.
Who was behind the violence
Hesse interior minister Roman Poseck first blamed about 100 left-wing extremists for hijacking the Frankfurt march. At a press conference on Sunday, however, police drew a line between a small group that turned violent at the end of the rally and a larger crowd behind the later looting, which they described mostly as young men already known to them from weekend gatherings in the city centre, with no apparent political motive. Poseck said the rioters were largely from migrant backgrounds, while noting most of those arrested were German citizens. Frankfurt mayor Mike Josef said he did not care what passport anyone held and that everyone who used violence must face the law.
We all have those images from France in our minds. France must not be held up as a model in this regard.
Roman Poseck, Hesse interior minister
Why it matters
The unrest shows a wave of youth protest across Europe reaching its largest economy. On the same day, more than 320,000 people marched in France for a third straight weekend, with over 770 arrests. Young people have also marched in Belgium, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece, mostly over housing, education and public services. Federal interior minister Alexander Dobrindt said police had prevented violence on the scale seen in Paris and called for harsh punishments for rioters and looters.
What happens next
Gen Z regelt has distanced itself from the violence, saying it had no control over what happened after its rallies ended, but plans to mobilise again for Europe-wide protests on November 20. Poseck has said that demonstration should not go ahead and that police will turn out in greater numbers and act firmly from the start at any further gatherings.
