Trump's huge defeat in Tuesday's midterm elections has been described as a tsunami. And it certainly is, because the earthquake continues to send waves, and it is sending them all over the world.

At least 600,000 people demonstrated this Thursday throughout France, according to data from the Interior Ministry, against the rising cost of living and the deterioration of public services. Within the framework of a general strike called by the main French unions, which place the participation figure at 1.6 million French people, citizens have once again returned to the streets in one of the forerunner states of the mobilizations sweeping across Europe, and which mostly share the loss of purchasing power and the cutting of social items in public budgets as motives for protest.

About 320,000 people, according to the Interior Ministry, demonstrated this Saturday in different cities in France on the third day of protests against the cost of living. Despite some incidents (in total the police made nearly 300 arrests), the mobilizations took place calmly, according to the latest official report. The turnout was lower than the 550,000 on October 17. There were some incidents at the end of the demonstrations in Paris, Marseille, Rennes, Lyon, Nantes, or Toulouse. The movement has spread to several European countries, and this week Germany joined in, and protests were repeated in Italy.

Since the wave of youth unrest in Western Europe began, the suspicion of a Russian hybrid attack has loomed over public opinion. The confusion over coordinated actions through channels specifically created for the occasion and the absence of visible leaders have spurred the shadow of an influence operation by Vladimir Putin's government. The reality, however, is that it is impossible to attribute the origin of the protests to Russia. What has been proven is that Moscow has amplified the disturbances and has tried to present them as the social reaction to the militarism of community elites devoted to Ukraine. A very convenient approach on the eve of an electoral cycle that could catapult the European parties most opposed to support for Kyiv.

Saturday's violence in Barcelona has changed the conversation. In September it was Ceuta, then Maricarmen Abascal and, now, the evening of broken glass in Barcelona, with the threat that next Saturday we will be back at it. What do we know and what do we not know about what happened? The most important thing is what we do not know: who summoned these young people via TikTok?

The novelty of Saturday's violence was, according to the Mossos, that the hooded individuals did not carry out the classic action of hiding at the tail end of an organized protest demonstration, but rather were summoned on TikTok, met up via WhatsApp in groups of no more than 15 or 20 youths (this, in their jargon, is called “the funnel”), planted themselves in the center of Barcelona and started destroying and looting. In a word, the violent ones began breaking windows, skipping the preliminaries. And the police were surprised by the virulence and the impact.

Protests have spread this Saturday to the main cities of Italy, after a protest last weekend against the rising cost of living and the deterioration of purchasing power degenerated into serious riots and looting in Milan, in the north of the country, and ended with 200 people arrested. On this occasion, there has been a new demonstration in Milan, but also in Rome, Turin, Florence, Naples, and Bologna. All have taken place without serious incidents, but there have been moments of tension. The police have arrested a total of nine people across the country, identified 4,292, and taken 371 to the police station, 110 of whom are minors.

The French protests of October 19 reached the Louvre. Initiated by young people, due to the cost of living and the crisis of public services, they are the manifestation of what many analysts and sociologists, such as Christophe Guilluy, call "the financial catastrophe of Macron's ultraliberal project". About fifty students from the art school registered at the museum blocked its entrance. To the cry of "Whose is the Louvre? It is ours!", they witnessed how the tourists became furious, insulted them, protested. But what were the tourists demanding? Their voice manifested the desire to enter, they declared their innocence, but they did not express the reason why they were there. Shortly after, the museum closed its doors.

The French are prone to street protest. This seems indisputable. But there must be something more, something that explains a practically endemic frustration. And this something could be related to the fact that France feels special, like a unique beacon of light in the world. The supposed French identity, constructed, like all others, in the 19th century, is based on the invention of grandeur.

When in some French cities they have banned demonstrations or when the Paris government wants to control the networks because that is where the agitation orders pass through, it is because social unrest has definitively infiltrated the heart of the system of freedoms, with a capacity for penetration capable of rusting all the parts of a democracy's engine.

500 soldiers on the streets of Milan. This is the response from Giorgia Meloni's far-right executive to this weekend's riots in the Italian city, where violent acts were particularly serious. Replicating what was happening in France, protests against the rising cost of living ended in clashes between police and demonstrators and the looting of some luxury shops and stores. Meloni herself confirmed this Tuesday, after a meeting of the council of ministers, the approval of the military reinforcement, which will extend "until the end of the year".

France has experienced a quiet night after days of riots and the chaos experienced during the weekend following the protest over the rising cost of living. Only a few unauthorized demonstrations in Lyon and Rennes, and the occasional scene of looting, have disturbed the calm. The bans on demonstrations and the curfews decreed in different cities have served to return –at least for now– to normality. Large cities such as Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux, and Lille will maintain partial curfews for tonight. In the case of the capital, the curfew affects all citizens –including tourists–, the Place de la République, and the Les Halles commercial area, epicenters of the violent acts of recent days. Despite the return of calm, the social crisis is far from being resolved and tension will return to the streets this Saturday in a new day of protest called by the yellow vests movement.

“It is getting dark in the land of lights”. Someone wrote this on a window of a ground floor in a Paris street. What is happening is not a moment of collective rage, but the consequence of a presidential model absolutely detached from the citizenry. We can go into a thousand details and speculations, but the chaos that France is currently experiencing expresses the failure of President Emmanuel Macron. Six months before the end of his term, his political figure has run out of breath and is now only lashing out senselessly. It is the culmination of arrogance. Of a character who has not understood that the presidency of the Republic neither grants impunity nor is above the citizenry, to whom it must be accountable. And what has happened is that the president's insolence, the self-complacency that illuminates him, has created the sensation that France was neglected. And in part it is true. But above all, it is the inability to understand and address the concerns of the citizens that has trapped the president. And it seems as if he still does not want to realize it.

It is not just France. In Italy, Belgium, Germany, Albania, Greece, Portugal, and Spain, there are also protests underway. Most of the mobilizations have a common background: protesting against the rising cost of living. In the case of Italy, the protests have escalated this weekend in parallel to those in France. In the north of the country, the mobilizations have ended in riots, especially in Milan, where the police have arrested 271 people and the Prosecutor's Office has requested preventive detention for eleven protesters.

The week begins marked by the landscape after the battle this weekend in France.

Smashed shop windows, emptied stores, luxury bags disappearing in mass. On October 17th, several French luxury houses were looted during a day of social protests across the country. Dior, Celine, Hermès, Louis Vuitton… These are not just any shops, but temples of exclusivity, showcases of a sector that trades on distinction—and social inequality. The looting occurred in the context of the French student mobilizations, which demand more resources for public education, more teachers, better infrastructure, and more equal opportunities. But what does demanding quality public education have to do with looting a boutique of luxury?

Student protests in France are no longer just those of high school students. This Thursday, university students joined various demonstrations called throughout the French state, and more and more sectors are supporting the adolescents' mobilizations. Unions and student and teacher organizations have called for a new day of major mobilizations for October 13, and on November 5, the major French unions are also calling for a day of protest.

France has been experiencing historic student protests for three weeks. Students are blocking educational centers, clashing with the police, and thus paving the way for other sectors of the population who, suffocated by the cost of living and dissatisfied with the budget prepared by Sébastien Lecornu's executive, are pointing toward broader mobilizations throughout the French state during October.

The streets are also applying pressure just hours before Pedro Sánchez's government brings the new housing decree-law to the Council of Ministers. Also in Barcelona, where this Monday the Spanish President, Pedro Sánchez, held various events and ended the day at the Palau de Congressos de Catalunya at the awards ceremony for La Vanguardia. 2,000 people according to the Guàrdia Urbana and 20,000 according to the organizers gathered on Avinguda Diagonal to demand that the new decree include, among other things, the indefinite extension of rental contracts and the suspension of evictions.

Key days for the future of the 86 workers who make up the Leche Pascual workforce in Gurb (Osona). After the Castilian company sealed the sale of the plant to the Catalan Casa Tarradellas, the dairy company's factory has been partially dismantled for months and the handover will take place on July 31. However, the workers' future remains uncertain: although there has been talk of an eventual incorporation into Casa Tarradellas, currently the buyer's offers do not convince the staff, as the conditions they propose are not precise enough. remains uncertain: while an eventual incorporation into Casa Tarradellas has been discussed, currently the buyer's offers do not convince the staff, as the conditions they propose are not precise enough.