Why are people protesting across Europe?

19 October 2026 at 17:36

School conditions, unaffordable housing and the cost of living have brought demonstrators on to the streets in several countries

Europe live – latest updates

Young people have been taking to the streets across Europe, including in Spain, France and Portugal, to protest over their unhappiness at the state of schools and the wider cost of living crisis.

In France, high school pupils have clashed with police in often violent protests over long hours, missing teachers, dilapidated classrooms and an opaque university admissions system. Pupils routinely miss months of teaching due to unfilled staff absences.

‘We are suffocating’: protests spread to Lisbon and Milan as housing and living cost tensions intensify

The Guardian - Europe

By: Sam Jones in Madrid and agencies

18 October 2026 at 12:02

Hundreds at Lisbon tent camp demand action, as Giorgia Meloni says march in Italy was exploited by ‘hooligans’

The angry protests that have convulsed Spain and France in recent weeks have spilled over to Italy and Portugal, with rioters clashing with police and setting property on fire in Milan, and a tent encampment springing up in Lisbon over the weekend.

A march in central Milan on Saturday to protest against rising living costs began peacefully but ended with masked rioters throwing stones, paving blocks and other objects at riot police and setting fire to barricades made from bar tables.

‘We are suffocating’: protests spread to Lisbon and Milan as housing and living cost tensions intensify

The Guardian - World news

By: Sam Jones in Madrid and agencies

18 October 2026 at 12:02

Hundreds at Lisbon tent camp demand action, as Giorgia Meloni says march in Italy was exploited by ‘hooligans’

The angry protests that have convulsed Spain and France in recent weeks have spilled over to Italy and Portugal, with rioters clashing with police and setting property on fire in Milan, and a tent encampment springing up in Lisbon over the weekend.

A march in central Milan on Saturday to protest against rising living costs began peacefully but ended with masked rioters throwing stones, paving blocks and other objects at riot police and setting fire to barricades made from bar tables.

Hilltop Villages, African Ivory and Wounded Skeletons: How Small Communities Resisted The First Bronze Age Power in Spain

LBV Magazine English Edition

By: Guillermo Carvajal

18 October 2026 at 11:01

Around 4,200 years ago, in the dry south-east of the Iberian Peninsula, a society began building cities on hilltops, stockpiling grain on a large scale and arming its warriors with halberds (blades like axe heads mounted on long poles) and metal swords. Archaeologists call it El Argar. Further north, in what are now La Mancha, […]

Clear Voices, Muddy Music: Scientists Measure How a Giant Roman Amphitheatre in Spain Sounds Today

LBV Magazine English Edition

By: Antonio García

18 October 2026 at 09:16

Thirty-five thousand spectators. That is the capacity the authors of a new study attribute to the Roman amphitheatre of Itálica, in Santiponce, near Seville in southern Spain. It is roughly the crowd of a mid-sized modern football stadium, and there was not a single loudspeaker in those stands. Whatever happened on the sand had to […]

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