The violent student riots that have swept across France have not been contained, as similar incidents are now being reported in neighboring Belgium and beyond.
The ongoing bedlam caused by French students is now being reported across Europe, with Belgium’s French-speaking community experiencing riots that the government is calling a “real, serious, and imminent risk.”
BE-Alert, the government-operated emergency notification system, notified citizens on Thursday: “Major unrest is underway. Close your businesses.”
Belgian Interior Minister Bernard Quintin condemned protesters at a Thursday press conference following the third night of riots in Liege. He attributed the chaos to left-wing groups, specifically naming antifa.
“We know that there is a movement, of the Antifa type, active in Liège,” Quintin said. “Adults who manipulate children in order to put across violent political messages. That is totally unacceptable.”
Demonstrators have smashed shop windows and looted stores throughout the campaign, which ostensibly began with similar demands for better education resources.
On social media, Quintin announced that “federal units are already mobilized alongside the Liège police” and “local police forces of Brussels and Antwerp” to face the “extreme gravity” of the situation and maintain order.
“[Police] will be further reinforced in the days ahead,” he said. “The identified perpetrators will have to answer for their actions before the courts. Vandals? Pay up! Period.”
Greek student associations are calling for widespread walkouts and protests on Thursday with a laundry list of demands to improve education — among them, free snacks in cafeterias and free school trips.
Earlier this week, Italian students picketed and marched through the streets of cities like Rome, Bologna, and Turin — some participants explicitly aligned themselves with their French counterparts.
Riots in Paris continue to dominate headlines, however, as the French government is proving incapable of sufficiently quashing the violence. More than 6,500 people have been arrested in recent days, most of them minors.
Horrendous videos have emerged from the chaos, including footage of an underage protester spraying a bystander in the face with a make-shift flamethrower. Separately, a teenager had his hand blown off by a police stun grenade, prompting an internal investigation.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said he is “suspending [stun grenades’] use in the high school student protests until the facts of the incident have been clarified,” but added that it would only be restricted until the investigation is over.
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Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has tried to temper the severity of police crackdowns, calling high school student voices “precious” and saying they “must be heard.”
On Wednesday, Lecornu announced a program called “High School Students’ Time” to gather complaints from pupils across the country. He previously promised an increase in the national education budget and collaboration with student leaders to address the perceived insufficiencies in the school system that ostensibly sparked the riots.
