Unafraid of the State Apparatus: Mass Protests in France and Italy

Strasbourg, France, 24 October 2026 -- jW screenshot

By Raphaël Schmeller und Amelie E. Höcker. junge Welt, 26 October 2026.

Translated for The Left Chapter by Helmut-Harry Loewen.

Emmanuel Macron thought he could ride out the protests. Instead, they are now overwhelming his presidency. Five weeks after the student protests began, hundreds of thousands took to the streets again in France on Saturday, despite school holidays and draconian repression. But education is no longer the sole focus. High school and college students, union members, workers, farmers, and Yellow Vests are protesting together against high prices, a broken public services system and increasing poverty. The “convergence des luttes” — a convergence of social struggles — is unfolding before everyone’s eyes.

Following the riots on October 17, the government increasingly framed the social conflict as a security issue. Looting and violence furnished the visuals to buttress this narrative. They were used to delegitimise the movement and to make its demands disappear behind the narrative of chaos.

Since then, the Élysée has relied even more heavily on repression. Over the past weekend, bans on demonstrations, restrictions on gatherings, or curfews were imposed in more than a hundred municipalities. On Saturday, 70,000 police officers and gendarmes were mobilised. Blast (blast-info.fr) revealed that Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu even had preparations ready for the possible shutdown of TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and X.

But none of these measures worked. According to the labour union federation Confédération générale du travail (CGT), 800,000 people took to the streets on Saturday. The demonstrators did not take the government’s bait. Despite the massive police presence, they refused to be provoked and denied the government the images of violence it sought to use to delegitimise the movement.

Macron’s presidency, marked by social protests due to his policies of impoverishment, is now ending with a social explosion and an authoritarian rush forward. Politically, the post-Macron era is already taking shape. Presidential elections will be held in May 2027. Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France insoumise stands with the people in the streets, while Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National positions itself as the party of order. And standing in between is Macronism, exhausted and incapable of responding to the crisis in any way other than with police batons.

Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen antifascist collage - Credit: Congrès du RN à Orléans : une mobilisation antifasciste massive, Blast, 25.10.20216 https://www.blast-info.fr

Just like Macron, Italy’s far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is also facing mass protests: Milan, Bologna, Turin, Naples, Florence, and Rome. Tens of thousands took to the streets to voice their anger over the high cost of living and sky-high gas prices.

Protest at the Colosseum, Rome, 24 October 2026 -- image via jW

Meloni had tried to prevent another escalation like the one on October 18 in Milan. In short order, she fabricated a new legal basis for increased repression. Together with her party, Fratelli d’Italia, and her far-right coalition partner, the Lega party led by Matteo Salvini, she had passed a “security decree” after last weekend, according to which even underage demonstrators may be preventively detained, a measure that was immediately implemented. During demonstrations on Saturday, there were reportedly 371 provisional arrests, 110 of whom were children and adolescents under the age of 18.

This did little to deter the protests, which took place under the name “Movimento 17 ottobre” in memory of last weekend’s uprisings, nor did the presence of 500 elite soldiers who had been sent to Milan last Monday. Further attempts at intimidation — such as drones flying over cities, the use of batons, tear gas, and water cannons, as well as partial internet surveillance — did not deter people from taking to the streets.

While owners barricaded their luxury stores in France and Italy, both Macron and Meloni are fulfilling their roles as guardians of the state and standing protectively in front of capital. The Italian Prime Minister said on Friday: “No political idea, no social crisis, and no opposition to the government can justify vandalizing a store to steal goods.” What she seems to forget is this: Those who have nothing left to lose are not afraid of the state apparatus.

Original article: Keine Angst. Massenproteste in Frankreich und Italien. Macron und Meloni aktivieren den Repressionsapparat. Von Raphaël Schmeller und Amelie E. Höcker. junge Welt, 26.10.2026. https://www.jungewelt.de/artikel/532159.proteste-in-eurpoa-keine-angst.html