France, Italy and Belgium: the revolt goes beyond the classroom

The trigger was educational, but the protest is now about much more. Over the weekend of 17-18 October, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in France in what several outlets describe as the country's biggest wave of unrest in years. Italy and Belgium joined with student demonstrations and clashes with police. Albania, Spain and Portugal also saw marches over housing, wages and public services.

What happened

In France, the starting point was a sit-in at a secondary school in Créteil, on the outskirts of Paris. Students complain about classes of up to 35 pupils, teacher shortages and classrooms at 40°C during heatwaves. In early October, between 400 and 500 schools closed fully or partially, and up to 1,800 lycées were blocked on a single day, according to Marca.

On Saturday 17, figures reported by international media spoke of more than a thousand arrests and more than 150 police officers injured. In Limoges, a fire badly damaged part of the historic city hall. Paris and Marseille saw looting and clashes. Since September, more than 6,000 people, most of them minors, have been taken to police stations, according to Reuters, cited by Marca.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu described the protests as the most violent in decades and blamed the «far left». Students have been joined by unions, workers hit by fuel costs and cuts, and groups reminiscent of the Yellow Vests movement.

Italy saw a «No-Meloni Day» in Milan, Turin, Bologna and Rome, with at least 50 arrests. The CGIL has called a general strike for 20 November. In Brussels, hundreds of students clashed with police, who used tear gas and water cannon, over education cuts by Bart De Wever's government. Albania has seen five days of protests and the Ministry of Education in Tirana was set on fire, while Spain and Portugal have added marches over housing and wages.

The map: inequality is not the whole story

The choropleth map shows the Gini index, the classic measure of income inequality. It runs from 0 (perfect equality) to 100 (maximum inequality). The data comes from the World Bank (Poverty and Inequality Platform, 2026), via Our World in Data, and uses the latest available year for each country.

Among the three countries at the centre of the protests, Belgium has the lowest Gini: 26.8 (2023). France records 31.8 (2023) and Italy 34.3 (2023). In other words, Belgium is the most equal of the three and still saw hundreds of students clash with police in Brussels. Income inequality alone does not explain the outbreak.

The map also widens the lens: Spain (33.4), Portugal (33.9) and Albania (29.4) complete the arc of countries that have taken to the streets. The protest does not follow a simple line of higher or lower Gini; it follows a mix of cost of living, housing, education and public services. That is the clue the map offers: the unrest cannot be reduced to a single variable.

How to read the map

Each country is coloured by its Gini. Lighter shades mean lower inequality, darker shades higher inequality. Click a country to open a card with the value and the year. Zoom out and the flat map turns into a 3D globe you can rotate; use the 2D/3D button to return to the flat view. The scale is not a moral ranking: a low Gini does not mean there are no problems with housing, youth employment or access to education.

What the map does not say

The Gini measures income or consumption after taxes and transfers, not wealth or assets. It does not measure housing prices, education spending, youth precariousness or the quality of public services. And the years are not identical: Albania appears with 2020 data, while most European countries use 2023.

What comes next

Italy's CGIL has called a general strike for 20 November, coinciding with a European student mobilisation. In Portugal, the CGTP has announced a protest outside parliament on 24 November, as the budget is debated. In France, the government has promised measures against those responsible for the violence, while unions keep up the pressure.

With new strikes announced for November, the wave does not appear to have peaked. The question is no longer only how much the minimum wage rises or how far the Gini falls, but how the cost of living is shared across Europe.