---
title: "Belgium, France, Italy and Portugal protest the same squeeze, on one Saturday"
description: "Four separately organised marches over tuition, rent and inflation landed on 17 October — and nobody agrees on how many people showed up"
author: "Luis Goa"
published: 2026-10-17T21:02:26Z
modified: 2026-10-18T03:55:07Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/belgium-france-italy-and-portugal-protest-the-same-squeeze-o-b843dd
language: en
tags: ["politics", "economy", "inflation", "protests", "housing", "europe"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# Belgium, France, Italy and Portugal protest the same squeeze, on one Saturday

*Four separately organised marches over tuition, rent and inflation landed on 17 October — and nobody agrees on how many people showed up*

By Luis Goa · October 17, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/belgium-france-italy-and-portugal-protest-the-same-squeeze-o-b843dd

## In brief

- Protests hit Belgium, France, Italy and Portugal on 17 October 2026, organised separately
- Euro-area annual inflation rose to 3.8% in September 2026, from 3.2% in August and 2.2% a year earlier
- French authorities counted 550,000 marchers nationwide; the CGT and student unions claimed 800,000
- Milan police detained about 50 people, many minors, after rioters looted shops near Piazza del Duomo
- Belgium’s under-25 TEC bus pass was set to rise from €12 to €384 a year before a partial political reversal

On Saturday 17 October, people marched in at least four European Union countries — Belgium, France, Italy and Portugal — in demonstrations called separately, by different unions and student groups, over different immediate grievances, that happened to converge on the same weekend. [Al Jazeera](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/17/cost-of-living-protests-hit-belgium-italy-portugal-and-france) reported hundreds of thousands of marchers across the four countries. No single body counted them all, and within every country the national tallies disagree with each other by a factor of two or more — a pattern that recurs through the whole story, and that tells you as much about how European states measure dissent as the protests themselves do.

The backdrop is one number [Eurostat](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-euro-indicators/w/2-16102026-ap) publishes every month: euro-area annual inflation, which rose to 3.8% in September 2026, up from 3.2% in August and from 2.2% a year earlier. Energy, at 18.9% year-on-year (up from 14.3% in August), did roughly half the work. Of the 3.8 percentage points of headline inflation, Eurostat attributes 1.71 points to energy, 1.52 to services, 0.29 to non-energy industrial goods and 0.25 to food, alcohol and tobacco; unprocessed food inflation alone jumped to 4.0% from 2.7% in a single month. None of this is specific to Belgium, France, Italy or Portugal — it is a bloc-wide average that hides large country differences — but it is the number every national grievance in this story sits on top of.

## Portugal: a new lease now costs more than the minimum wage

In Lisbon, Porto and Coimbra, the CGTP union federation led marches under the slogan “higher wages, better pensions, and public services,” as [Euronews reported](https://euronews.com/2026/10/17/portugal-sees-protests-over-cost-of-living-and-housing-crisis-as-demonstrations-sweep-euro). Al Jazeera’s reporting put Portuguese property prices at more than double their 2017 level. The number behind the Lisbon marches is more specific: [data published by Portugal’s statistics institute, INE,](https://www.idealista.pt/en/news/legal-advice-in-portugal/2026/10/13/77997-rents-in-portugal-could-rise-by-2-56-in-2027-a-guide-for-landlords-and-tenants) put the median rent on new leases at €10.17 per square metre in the second quarter of 2026, up 10.2% year-on-year and a record. For a standard two-bedroom flat at that median, the monthly rent — about €864 — now exceeds the net minimum wage of €818.80. Signing a new lease, in other words, costs more than a full month’s minimum-wage pay packet before anything else is bought. CGTP general secretary Tiago Oliveira called it a “brutal increase” in housing costs and in the cost of living generally. The Left Bloc’s José Manuel Pureza put it to the Associated Press this way, as carried by Euronews:

> Those whose rent is getting ever more expensive, those whose mortgage is increasingly hard to fit into the family budget. That is what we are talking about, that is why people have been protesting, always peacefully, always peacefully.

![A large cream envelope emerges from a red house with a dark blue roof and barred doorway, with loose paper strips falling against a yellow background.](https://rews.cc/img/c3c274e7ea89321c22bc222310b4405a4023f016.webp)

Portugal’s Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Carlos Abreu Amorim, said ahead of the march that the government would not yield to “shouts from the street,” per Al Jazeera. No serious violence was reported at the Portuguese marches.

## Belgium: a tuition bill that more than tripled, a bus pass that rose 32-fold

Belgium’s unrest predates 17 October by weeks. The Wallonia-Brussels Federation’s new fee schedule for 2026-27, [reported by the Brussels Times](https://www.brusselstimes.com/2320289/studying-is-a-right-we-will-not-negotiate-students-protest-against-higher-education-costs-in-brussels), sorts students into bands of €0, €374, €835 or €1,194 a year by financial circumstance, replacing a flatter, cheaper system; about 60% of students land in the top band, according to the magazine *Moustique*. One Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles student, Emilie, told reporters her own fee went from €350 to €1,200. Separately, [the Wallonia transport operator TEC confirmed](https://trends.levif.be/a-la-une/mobilite/etudiants-tec-tarifs-2027-gratuite/) that from 1 February 2027 its near-free €12-a-year youth pass disappears; full network access, Express lines included, rises to €384 a year — a 32-fold increase affecting some 136,000 young riders. TEC’s justification: a 2024 internal evaluation that, it said, found no significant link between the cheap fare and higher ridership. Under pressure, Wallonia’s governing MR and Les Engagés parties have since proposed capping the new youth fare at €180 instead. A 9 October national march in Brussels drew 30,000 people by police count and 50,000 by unions’ count; by 17 October, with cost-of-living protests converging nationwide, police used tear gas and water cannon in both Brussels and Liège, where they said protesters threw projectiles and set fires. Interior Minister Bernard Quintin said “what is unfolding in Brussels is no longer mere protest.”

## Italy: a march against war and prices ends at the Duomo

Italy’s 17 October unrest followed a 2 October 24-hour multi-sector strike — covering rail, schools, healthcare, local authorities, metalworking, agriculture and private security — called by a small autonomous union, not by the CGIL confederation whose Gaza-related general strike drew more than two million people into Italian squares in October 2025. The Milan march on 17 October began as a demonstration against war and the cost of living; it ended with masked protesters throwing stones and paving blocks at riot police, burning barricades built from café tables, and looting shops, clearing Piazza del Duomo and a luxury shopping arcade. The Italian news agency LaPresse reported at least two police officers injured and about 50 demonstrators detained, many of them minors. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni defended the right to peaceful protest while condemning the arson, and accused troublemakers of exploiting the demonstration; Milan’s centre-left mayor, Giuseppe Sala, acknowledged the protesters’ underlying grievances but rejected the attacks on police and property. Police in Bologna reported separate stone-throwing.

[![Milano, scontri in Duomo tra manifestanti e polizia - la diretta](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/L1AdtJYTQhY/hqdefault.jpg)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1AdtJYTQhY)

Live Italian television coverage of the clashes between protesters and riot police around Milan’s Piazza del Duomo on 17 October. Video: La Repubblica · YouTube

## France: a budget fight, and a counting fight

France’s 17 October marches folded into school blockades that had already [run since September](https://rews.cc/a/a-crisis-of-hope-in-the-lycees-france-s-young-blockade-their-956e04), over education funding and the national budget. On turnout, the French interior ministry and the unions disagree by roughly 250,000 people: [CNN reported](https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/17/europe/half-million-protesters-sweep-france-in-youth-unrest-latam-intl) the ministry’s nationwide count at 550,000, including 110,000 in Paris, while [TASS reported](https://tass.com/society/2203615) the CGT union and the student group L’Union Étudiante putting the national figure at 800,000, across 1,700 separate rallies and marches by the student union’s own count. An independent crowd count for Paris specifically, cited in [earlier rews reporting](https://rews.cc/a/france-s-oct-17-protests-32-800-counted-500-000-claimed-same-de83c0) on the same day, put the capital’s crowd at 32,800 — a reminder that French headcounts vary not only by who is counting, but by what, exactly, is being counted: a city or a country, marchers or rally attendees. The violence was not contested. Fire gutted a 140-year-old town hall in Limoges; intruders damaged municipal buildings in Marseille and Lille; Lyon’s tourist office was burned. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said 1,200 people were arrested nationwide and 150 police officers were injured, calling it “a miracle the toll wasn’t higher.” President Emmanuel Macron said on social media that those responsible would be “prosecuted and punished.”

[![France Erupts In Street Violence: Cars Torched, Shops Looted As Police Clash With Protesters | APT](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ya1rYpidzQ8/hqdefault.jpg)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya1rYpidzQ8)

Footage of torched cars, looted shops and police clashes with protesters in France on 17 October, published by a news broadcaster. Video: APT · YouTube

## The next twelve months have four elections in them

Alberto Alemanno, an EU law and policy professor at HEC Paris Business School, told Al Jazeera that the four marches were distinct movements rather than one coordinated campaign, but shared concerns over education funding, household costs and graduates’ job prospects. France, he said, was the main centre of unrest, with early signs that it could spread to Greece, Germany and Austria within the following week. He noted that elections are due in Spain, France, Italy and Poland over the next 12 months — which is one reason four separately organised Saturday marches are getting read, by governments and by each other, as a single political fact.

The numbers to watch now are mundane by comparison: Eurostat’s next inflation estimate, due in mid-November, will show whether September’s energy spike was a one-month jump or the start of a run; Wallonia’s parliament still has to vote on whatever youth transport fare replaces the scrapped €12 pass; and France’s unions have not yet said whether there will be another nationwide call before the budget vote. Whether four uncoordinated Saturdays add up to one European movement is a question none of this weekend’s headcounts, however they were taken, actually answered.

## See also

- [Inflation in the euro area, Eurostat Statistics Explained](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Inflation_in_the_euro_area) — ec.europa.eu · Rolling explainer on how euro-area inflation and its components are measured
- [Rent prices in Portugal 2026: median rent by city (INE)](https://aluseg.com/en/aluseg-rent-index-portugal/) — aluseg.com · City-by-city breakdown of Portuguese rent data underlying the housing protests
- [Prix de l'abonnement LeTec, minerval et précarité étudiante](https://www.rtbf.be/article/prix-de-l-abonnement-letec-minerval-et-precarite-etudiante-que-disent-les-chiffres-des-revendications-des-eleves-11796931) — rtbf.be · RTBF checks Belgian students' tuition and transport-fare claims against official figures
- [Bloquons tout](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloquons_tout) — en.wikipedia.org · Background on the French movement behind the school and street blockades
- [Gaza strikes and protests in Rome and Milan](https://en.ilsole24ore.com/art/gaza-strikes-and-protests-in-rome-and-milan-cancelled-trains-and-delays-AHLUHPyC) — en.ilsole24ore.com · Scale of Italy's October 2025 CGIL general strike, for comparison with 2026's turnout

## Sources

- [Cost-of-living protests sweep Belgium, Italy, Portugal and France](https://aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/17/cost-of-living-protests-hit-belgium-italy-portugal-and-france) — aljazeera.com
- [Portugal sees protests over cost of living and housing crisis as demonstrations sweep Europe](https://euronews.com/2026/10/17/portugal-sees-protests-over-cost-of-living-and-housing-crisis-as-demonstrations-sweep-euro) — euronews.com