From France to Albania, social unrest is setting Europe's streets ablaze

MADRID (AP) — Rising fuel costs, discontent with the state of schools, declining public services and a housing crisis have created perfectly stormy weather for an autumn of protests in Europe.

Crowds have taken to the streets for weeks in major cities, resulting in arrests, looting, injuries, and violence across France, Italy and Albania. In Spain and Portugal, tent camps have sprung up in protests against unattainable rents and housing costs.

Young Europeans are experiencing “a strong sense of uncertainty and a lack of control,” said María Silvestre, professor of sociology at the University of Deusto in Spain. “And when specific situations come together, a spark suddenly ignites that is capable of channeling that discontent and driving people into the streets.”

Cities have turned into battlefields as top EU economies, including France, Italy and Spain, approach pivotal elections, while far-right parties have made electoral gains in Germany and could do so elsewhere. It also comes as Europe faces a critical moment in its support for Ukraine, with President Donald Trump making overtures to President Vladimir Putin even as Russia is blamed for increasingly frequent hybrid attacks in NATO countries.

Right-wing politicians have seized on the chaos. While protests in France have appeared broad-based, Trump portrayed immigrants as responsible for the destruction, writing on his Truth Social platform: “The migrants have taken over France. They must CLOSE THE BORDERS, FAST!” on Monday.

Many of the protests have been fueled by frustrated young people. Other elements including black-clad, masked agitators have fomented violence, but French authorities and police have not blamed immigrants.

Here's a look at what's driving the unrest:

In France, which has a centuries-old tradition of popular protest, high schoolers have staged blockades and demonstrations for more than three weeks, demanding more resources for schools they call understaffed and dilapidated, especially in lower-income neighborhoods.

The protests then broadened as France's CGT labor union and other activists joined in while students paused for a fall break. The movement now includes demands over rising living costs and public services.

Despite hundreds of thousands of people marching peacefully, the weekend’s unrest led to 2,400 arrests and serious disturbances in parts of France, including looting in Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Bordeaux. In Limoges, flames engulfed the 19th-century City Hall and nearly destroyed the building. Some schools were set on fire. As students and rioters threw firebombs and law enforcement responded with tear gas, hundreds have been injured.

French President Emmanuel Macron condemned Saturday’s violence, accusing far-left activists of trying to foment chaos by attacking buildings and police.

“Those who looted will have to pay for the damage, and those who sought to bring down the Republic will be held accountable,” Macron said Sunday in a rare televised address.

In Spain, elementary and secondary schoolteachers began an indefinite strike in Madrid last week to demand better pay and working conditions. Discontented teachers staged similar walkouts elsewhere in Spain this year.

In Madrid's central Puerta del Sol, tarpaulin tents have blanketed the square for weeks to protest rising housing costs, sparked by the eviction of Maricarmen, an 87-year-old woman who later died while hospitalized. Smaller protest camps followed in other Spanish cities.

The public pressure led the ruling Socialist government to approve affordable housing measures, but they lacked support in Parliament, triggering a snap election announced by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez for November. A general strike also was called for November — the first in 14 years.

Similar housing protests have sprung up in Portugal’s largest cities, Lisbon and Porto, and in Barcelona, a focal point of Spain's overtourism and housing challenges.

Spain's minimum wage is 1,221 euros ($1,370), while the average monthly rent for an 80-square-meter apartment is around 1,130 euros (about $1,270), according to an analysis by the business newspaper Expansión.

“Most of my paycheck goes to the rent. My roommate struggles to make ends meet just like I do,” said Diana Manzanares, a 20-year-old waitress at the Madrid encampment. “This is my reality and the reality of most of us living in this city.”

“Italia in Piazza,” or Italy in the Streets, has galvanized thousands of demonstrators, voicing demands for better employment, healthcare, education, and access to housing, as well as higher wages. Inflation in Italy rose to 4.2% in September, surpassing the eurozone’s 3.8%, according to government data.

The peaceful marches were followed by violent riots in Turin and Bologna, and in Italy's finance and fashion capital of Milan, where masked rioters clashed with police, looted stores and set property on fire. Milan police said 271 people were arrested — most of them minors — and 14 security officers were injured during two days of unrest.

Now a newly formed group calling itself the “Oct. 17 Movement” has announced what it describes as a “permanent mobilization” to demonstrate every Saturday at 3 p.m. in cities across Italy.

Anti-government protests have stretched over a week in Albania's capital of Tirana, with clashes escalating after high school and university students joined the broad anti-government “Flamingo” movement calling for Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama to resign.

Rama has condemned the protesters as “ideologized and radicalized” by antifa, an umbrella term for loosely organized far-left militants in the United States, where President Donald Trump has designated the movement a terrorist organization.

Ending corruption is a major demand of the movement, which was named for the natural habitat of flamingos in an area where Rama's government agreed to allow a major luxury tourism development linked to Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law. They also want protections for healthcare, education, and public pensions, according to its website.

In Serbia, the university students leading mass anti-corruption protests for nearly two years are challenging an attempted return to power by the Balkan country’s former populist leader Aleksandar Vucic in parliamentary elections.

The former authoritarian president is aiming to be named prime minister after the Oct. 25 vote. The youth-backed Students’ List party is believed to be running close to Vucic’s party, making the outcome uncertain and fueling fears of possible violence.

A protester holds a French flag at Republic Square during a demonstration against rising living costs, joining students' grievances, in Paris, Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Police confront "Italia in Piazza" protesters in Milan, Italy, on Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026. (Stefano Porta/LaPresse via AP)

Protesters gather during clashes at an anti-government demonstration in Tirana, Albania, Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Hameraldi Agolli)

A man sets up a roof cover at a makeshift camp set up by protesters demanding stronger laws to protect renters in Puerta del Sol square in Madrid, Spain, Friday, Oct. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Protesters march during a demonstration against rising living costs, joining students' grievances, in Paris, Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

A protester wraps a French flag around them in front of the burning tourism office during a demonstration against rising living costs and in solidarity with students’ grievances in Lyon, France, Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks in the artificial-intelligence industry are bouncing back on Wall Street Monday and recovering some of their steep losses from last week, but the rest of the market and stocks worldwide are shaky.

The S&P 500 rose 0.5%, coming off its worst week since June, and the Nasdaq composite rallied 1.1% because it's full of technology stocks. The majority of U.S. stocks outside of AI and tech were falling, though, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was mostly unchanged, as of 1:52 p.m. Eastern time, after swinging between earlier losses and gains.

In Europe, the drops were sharp as many indexes sank more than 1%, including 1.1% in Paris. Those losses followed violent protests over the weekend that could force governments to increase their spending, which would put even more pressure on their bond markets. Yields cranked higher for European bonds.

AI stocks stood out amid all the cross currents, as they have for most of the past few years. A frenzy in spending for AI technology has forced them to the forefront of the market, sending them to record prices and driving indexes higher. Last week, AI stocks grabbed the spotlight after tumbling on worries about how expensive it has become to borrow money, which could threaten the boom.

Much of the spending on AI chips and data centers has come from borrowed money, and Treasury yields in the bond market have recently hit their highest levels in years or even decades. That raises the cost of borrowing money for everyone, from the U.S. government to companies to households.

CoreWeave, a company that’s borrowed to buy AI chips that it rents out to customers over the cloud, has been at the center of the market’s shifts. It rose 2.8% Monday after tumbling 25.2% last week.

Nvidia added 1.3% and was one of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500. Because it’s the largest stock on Wall Street by total market value, a 1% move for its stock has more effect on the index than any other’s.

SpaceX, which controls the xAI business, rose 0.8% to $147.26. Its founder, Elon Musk, pledged on Monday to give one share of SpaceX to “every kid in America” next year. The offer came after Anthropic said over the weekend that it will commit 5% of the shares in its highly anticipated initial public offering of stock to a new “public benefit” fund.

AI stocks rose ahead of some profit reports coming later in the week that could offer more details about the strength of AI-related spending.

Meta Platforms, which is pushing its Muse AI agent, will report its latest quarterly results on Wednesday. Lam Research, which supplies equipment and services for the making of semiconductors, will also talk about how its business is doing on Wednesday.

Expectations are high across the board for U.S. companies’ profits from the summer. Analysts are forecasting overall growth of 29% for companies in the S&P 500 from the prior summer, according to FactSet. Those high expectations are what has allowed the U.S. stock market to run to records despite worries about war, high inflation and pressure from the bond market.

Cleveland-Cliffs rallied 15.8% after the steel company reported a bigger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. CEO Lourenco Goncalves said it was the strongest quarter for the company in three years and that the outlook for profit in 2027 “has improved materially” from three months ago.

In stock markets abroad, the rebound for AI stocks helped South Korea’s Kospi jump 1.8% to recover some of its 14.5% drop from last week. It is dominated by two huge players in the AI industry, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, which has made it much jumpier than other markets.

In Europe, bond yields climbed following mass protests against the rising cost of living and poor school conditions. The protests could put pressure on governments to boost their spending to offer help, but that would likely only add to their already big piles of debt.

Yields rose for French bonds on worries about the government’s already strained budget and climbed much more than yields for Germany, which investors have historically seen as a safer bet.

In the U.S. bond market, yields gained ground as the yield on the 10-year Treasury climbed to 5.14% from 5.09% late Friday. It topped 5.30% earlier this month and touched its highest level since 2002.

Oil prices wavered. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 0.2% to $110.12 per barrel. It had been falling earlier in the day and has been yo-yoing between $97 and $110 this month on uncertainty about when the war with Iran will allow the energy industry to return to normal.

AP Business Writer Chan Ho-him contributed to this report.

FILE - A general view of the New York Stock Exchange is seen, Aug. 7, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)

Currency traders work at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Oct. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A currency trader watches monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Oct. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A currency trader talks on the phone at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Oct. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)