Protests shake Europe from Paris to Tirana: Rama publishes protesters' faces, France puts 70,000 police on the streets

Saturday, October 24, is a day Europe is bracing for like a storm. A wave of protests has swept France, Albania, Italy, Austria, Poland, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Belgium, and tension is highest in France and Italy, where mass demonstrations have been called in the big cities today.

France: 70,000 uniforms and a closed Louvre

French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez announced 70,000 police and gendarmes across the country, with special units, helicopters and drones. "We will be uncompromising towards looters and rioters," he said. The security services expect between 400,000 and 500,000 protesters and warn of attacks on public buildings and "opportunistic looting."

Paris is closing 24 metro stations, from the Champs-Élysées to the Latin Quarter. The Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay and the Picasso Museum are shut, as are the Cartier and Louis Vuitton foundations, the Paris Opera and the Cirque d'Hiver. Police have authorised only one large march - the unions', from Place de la Bastille to Place de la Nation - while the route filed by students and the "yellow vests" has been banned. In Lyon and Marseille protests are banned outright.

The reason for these measures is last weekend. After violent protests on October 17 and 18, 2,700 people were detained and 217 ended up in prison, said Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin. As many as 68 percent of those jailed are 25 or younger, and more than half had no criminal record at all. In Limoges the historic town hall burned down - a curfew from 10 pm to 5 am and a ban on gatherings of more than ten people are now in force there. French insurers estimate losses of up to 1.2 billion euros, with around 3,000 businesses damaged.

And what do the protesters actually want? That's the part that gets lost under the pictures of burning buildings. The protests began out of anger over the state of education and the high cost of living. Secondary school students, whom Macron has invited to a meeting at the Élysée Palace, are demanding more money for education, renovated schools, new teachers and reform of university admissions. Macron blames radical left-wing groups and criminals for the violence, while Trump was quick to say France had lost control of migration. Everyone sees in the protests what they want to see.

Italy: "We won't pay for your war"

In Italy, the "October 17" movement has called for regular Saturday protests in at least eight major cities - Milan, Rome, Turin, Bologna, Florence, Padua, Bari and Genoa. The demands are higher wages, a lower cost of living, affordable housing and more money for public services. In Turin people are protesting against higher military spending under the slogan "We won't pay for your war," and in Rome the "Italy out of the war" march expects around 10,000 people. Milan still remembers last weekend: 271 arrests, many of them minors, and 14 members of the security forces injured. Shopkeepers on the luxury Via Monte Napoleone are already boarding up their windows.

Albania: a blacklist next door

For us, the closest scene is in Tirana, where anti-government protests are in their eleventh day. On Friday, medical students and university professors in white coats and surgical masks stood in front of the government building and rejected Prime Minister Edi Rama's latest offer of talks. "We came out to demand a resignation and nothing else," one of them said. The declaration they read out was, according to the organisers, backed by 120 health workers: Rama's resignation and a transitional technical government.

Rama responded in a way everyone in the region should be watching. He published photos of 45 people he claims have criminal records and took part in the violence, and accused organised crime, "foreign structures" and the opposition Democratic Party of being behind them. One of those named immediately spoke out: he says he is a medical student with a perfect ten grade average and that the accusations of links to drug trafficking are unfounded. On Friday, a court in Tirana released all 16 arrested protesters, ordering them to report regularly to police.

The government is also considering a special blacklist in the state TIMS system, and data on protesters accused of violence could be passed on to European partners - which could end in a ban on entering some EU countries. Rama has also floated making the parents of underage participants financially liable for the damage, and there is talk of stripping scholarships from pupils who attack police officers and firing teachers who incite violence. The damage in Tirana, according to the Albanian tax administration, comes to 2.15 million euros across 127 business premises.

The Molotov cocktails and burned shops are real, and police responded with tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets. But when the prime minister of an EU candidate country publicly posts citizens' faces and considers sending their data around Europe, the question is no longer just who threw the bottles. The question is who keeps the list, and who decides who is a "thug" and who is a straight-A medical student. Rama still refuses to resign, and leaves his offer of dialogue - literally - on the concrete benches outside his office.

The first reflex of the government in Tirana was to look for whoever is paying the students. Will anyone get around to what they are actually asking for?