Albanian PM Edi Rama insists violent student riots threaten the country's EU membership bid, not his own government

Excavators ripped up paving outside Edi Rama's Tirana office while he was speaking to the public live on Facebook, and further protests are expected. Demonstrators demanding his resignation have torched government buildings and banks and hurled paving stones at police, who fired back with tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets. Rama, in power since 2013, posed the question to Albanians: 'Do they want this... or do they want the EU?'

Eighty people have been charged with disorder, with hundreds more arrested or under investigation.

The unrest has its roots in summer protests against a Jared Kushner-backed luxury coastal development.