Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez is not downplaying the political violence in Paris and many other cities in France, as well as elsewhere throughout Europe. He is also not pretending it is uncoordinated, or that it isn’t being driven by the far left.
“Nuñez pointed to calls posted on ultra-left websites urging people to gather at 8 p.m.,” explains an Epoch Times report, “cover their faces, and use Halloween night to loot, vandalize, or attack public buildings.”
These do not seem like “mostly peaceful protests.”
“They called for revolution, for insurrection, for the night of darkness,” said Nuñez, designating the efforts as aiming for “an insurrectional climate, a climate of quasi-revolution.”
Referencing one of the more deadly bits of violence, Nuñez stated that “When you throw a Molotov cocktail at a police line, I call that attempted murder.”
But France was only the beginning. Protests are indeed all over the EU, with Berlin becoming “the latest European capital to witness clashes,” reports The Daily Mail, “as more than 3,500 demonstrators — many wearing costumes — descended on the streets, with flares, fireworks and glass bottles thrown at riot police.”
Other German cities besieged include Hamburg and Cologne (Köln).
News outlets generally agree on the public face of the organizations behind the events. “The demonstrations were organised by a campaign group called ‘Gen Z regelt,’ which translates as ‘Gen Z takes charge,’” is how ET Now puts it. “The movement drew inspiration from youth-led protests elsewhere in Europe, particularly France and Italy. In Serbia, student activism helped unseat the country’s longtime leader through elections, while demonstrations in France have at times escalated into rioting and looting.”
Meanwhile, Poland reels over an alleged attempt at a “coup d’etat.”
A lot is happening in Europe.