Violent protests spread from France to Italy and Belgium

Looting and clashes with police take place in Milan, Brussels, Liège and Tirana

Protests across Europe over high costs of living and other economic concerns have turned increasingly disruptive in recent days, with violence breaking out in cities including Paris, Milan and the Albanian capital Tirana.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called an emergency meeting on Monday to discuss the security situation amid criticism from her political rivals over the inadequate police response to the unrest. Italian steel workers and truck drivers were protesting on Monday, causing disruption at an airport and on the roads.

Over the weekend, young agitators waged battles against police in several major Italian cities as well as in Belgium and Albania, in an echo of the destructive scenes that shook France. The protests come ahead of a European election supercycle in which nationalist, anti-immigrant parties are on the rise, including in France and Italy.

The Italian premier said the government would "evaluate further tools against those who exploit legitimate manifestations to sow violence and chaos".

Demonstrations against the cost of living crisis spun out of control in Milan on Saturday, as agitators battled police and looted shops in and around the famed Piazza Duomo. Looting continued on Sunday in the heart of the city.

"We need to understand what's going on. It's not like the violent protests that we were used to because these aren't anarchists," said Milan's mayor Giuseppe Sala, blaming the violent spree in Italy's financial capital on obscure groups of youths "that draw inspiration from international events".

In Belgium this weekend, hundreds of protesters in Brussels and Liège clashed with police officers, five of whom were injured. Police used tear gas and water cannons to try to disperse the protesters, who used electric scooters and construction equipment to block roads and caused "important damage", police said.

Students held posters with slogans such as "Generation Z because [we are the] last one" and protested against the ruling government coalition. Images showed some burning cars and rubbish. The francophone Socialist Party in Brussels condemned the "ransacking" of its headquarters.

"What is happening in Brussels is no longer simple protest! It is plain and simple violence, organised and repeated, aimed at destabilising our society," Belgian interior minister Bernard Quintin wrote on the social media platform X.

About 150 people were detained as part of the protests, police said.

The European Commission, which is also headquartered in Brussels, said on Monday: "The right to peaceful protest is a fundamental right in all democratic countries and must be protected. Those who demonstrate peacefully must not be conflated with those who commit violence. Arson, looting or attacks on public buildings are unacceptable."

In Italy's eastern neighbour Albania, a Nato member and EU candidate country, Prime Minister Edi Rama on Monday blamed Iran and Russia for stoking violent protests that have led to dozens of injuries and huge property damage.

Albania had for months seen large, mostly peaceful anti-government demonstrations -- the so-called Flamingo protests -- triggered by a planned seaside resort backed by Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

But protests have turned violent in the past two weeks. Angry youths have hurled cobblestones against police, who responded with tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets.

"We know very well that . . . there was also a wave of Russian influence across social media," Rama told reporters following a weekend of heavy protests in the capital. "Tens of thousands of fake profiles, created specifically to pose as Albanians seeking to protect nature, were mobilised."

Mujtaba Rahman, director of the Eurasia Group consultancy, said the protests in France, Italy and elsewhere in Europe all stemmed from "a real sense of stagnation . . . and that people's lives aren't getting better", after years of weak governments failing to advance growth-enhancing economic reforms.

As living costs soared, "the solutions that governments are putting forward seem inadequate to the scale of the problem and the scale of the frustrations people are feeling", he added.