Masked rioters loot a Frankfurt gun shop and firebomb police as Gen-Z cost-of-living protests spread to Germany
Crowds on the streets of Frankfurt on Saturday night, as around 100 rioters — some in Halloween costumes — smashed open storefronts and attacked emergency workers with Molotov cocktails amid a Gen Z cost-of-living protest that drew an estimated 8,000 demonstrators at its peak.A post shared by @NewsFokus on X showing scenes from Frankfurt am Main under the #GenZRegelt hashtag, as France separately banned Halloween masks ahead of fresh protests.Riot police on the streets of Paris. France banned Halloween masks and deployed 70,000 police and gendarmes nationwide amid warnings of "a very high risk of public disorder.Fires and smoke at Porte de Charenton, Paris, as a French officer was treated for severe burns after a Molotov cocktail struck him — an attack France's interior minister described as attempted murder.
Hesse interior minister Roman Poseck blamed around 100 "left-wing extremist perpetrators" for the worst of the violence in Frankfurt, where police used water cannons and tear gas against crowds hurling Molotov cocktails, stones and fireworks. The unrest — part of a third consecutive weekend of Gen-Z-led European protests — drew as many as 18,000 demonstrators across Frankfurt, Berlin and Munich, roughly half the turnout organisers had predicted. Across France, 320,000 people marched and more than 560 were arrested as a Paris riot officer suffered severe leg burns after being struck by a petrol bomb.
Looters smashed into a Frankfurt gun shop and stole weapons, though police later retrieved them after arresting a suspect.
Poseck said one officer may have sustained 'more serious injuries' as 27 officers were hurt in Berlin alone.
In Hamburg, protesters burned down barricades and fired pyrotechnics at police, while Albanian rioters demanded Prime Minister Edi Rama's resignation.
