Student protests over education and living costs hit Albania, France and Argentina - critical summary review

In three countries on two continents, students have walked out of classrooms over the same two complaints: studying costs more than they can afford, and so does everything else. There is no single organisation behind it. Each country has its own trigger, its own government and its own flashpoint. What they share is a generation saying that public education has been squeezed at the exact moment daily life became expensive.

In one week of October, the three fronts escalated at the same time. Albania's Education Ministry was set on fire during a fifth day of street battles in Tirana. France saw what CNBC described as some of the worst violence the country has witnessed for decades, and the government began imposing localised curfews. In Argentina, thousands marched outside parliament in the fifth protest over university funding since Javier Milei took office in late 2023. Below is what each of those stories is, for someone who has not been following any of them.

Three countries, the same equation

In every case, students are making two arguments at once: that public education is short of money, and that they cannot afford to live while they study.

In France, the movement began in late September at high schools in the working-class northern suburbs of Paris, over teacher shortages and run-down buildings, and widened into a protest about inequality, public spending and living standards, according to CNBC. In Albania, student organisers listed university conditions, the cost of higher education, the lack of financial support and job prospects after graduation. In Argentina, the complaint is salaries eroded by inflation and scholarships that were never restored.

The movements are also watching one another. At the Buenos Aires march, one young woman carried a placard reading "Let's occupy the streets, like in France!" In Tirana, a 19-year-old medical student who gave his name as George told the BBC: "We were peaceful for 135 days. Now we are trying to do like in France."

Albania: from student protest to fire at the Education Ministry

Albania had been protesting since late May, in a movement nicknamed the "Flamingo Revolution" after the pink bird on its placards. It began against a multimillion-euro luxury resort project on a protected stretch of the southern coast, linked to Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump, and grew into a broader complaint about alleged corruption and the demand that Prime Minister Edi Rama resign. For months the rallies were peaceful.

On Tuesday 13 October, students gathered outside the Education Ministry in Tirana. The protest turned violent the same day: bricks and concrete blocks were thrown at the building, riot police answered with tear gas and water cannon, 23 people were arrested and six officers and a journalist were injured, police said. Overnight, demonstrators broke in and lit a fire inside the ministry. By Wednesday, according to the Guardian, a branch of Raiffeisen Bank nearby had also caught fire, 23 police officers and six other people were being treated, and 35 people had been detained. President Bajram Begaj condemned the violence and appealed for calm.

Over the first three days of the student protests, 152 people were arrested and 324 placed under investigation, DW reported, with police saying 71 officers had been injured. The unrest spread beyond the capital to cities including Shkodër, Elbasan, Durrës, Vlora and Korçë.

Rama, in power since 2013, ruled out resigning. "Governments are changed through democratic elections. We had elections last year, not a revolution," he told Reuters, adding that his responsibility was "to listen, address legitimate concerns and keep Albania moving forward". He blamed the violence on the opposition and, later, on "foreign hands" seeking to block Albania's path into the European Union, a membership he has promised by 2030. Sali Berisha, leader of the opposition Democratic Party, rejected that and backed the protest. The EU delegation in Tirana condemned the "violent escalation", called on protesters to refrain from violence and also urged a prompt investigation into allegations of excessive police force against demonstrators and journalists.

France: the school inequality behind the protests

The French protests started with something very concrete. Abdel, an 18-year-old in his final year in the eastern Paris suburb of Bagnolet, told AFP that his biology teacher was missing at the start of the year and that the replacement who eventually arrived was an English teacher. "I missed a year's worth of lessons," he said. He described toilets without locks, patchy internet and handouts made unreadable by a lack of printer ink.

The numbers behind those complaints are national. Across France, pupils lost 15.4 million hours of teaching last year because absent staff were not replaced, according to the education ministry. Class sizes in secondary schools, excluding vocational programmes, hit a record average of 30.2 pupils in 2025. France spends 24% more per pupil on upper secondary education than the OECD average, yet its latest PISA scores were the country's worst since the rankings began in 2000. For OECD education analyst Eric Charbonnier, "it is a question of how the money is spent": the most disadvantaged schools, he said, are often the ones that lack resources, with younger teachers, more temporary staff and higher absenteeism.

By mid-October the movement had merged with a wider protest over the cost of living. On Saturday 17 October, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said around 550,000 people took part in 110 marches, while the CGT union estimated 800,000. Around 400 people were arrested that day. The city hall in Limoges was set ablaze, Marseille's was broken into, and Lyon's tourist office was torched. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu blamed "far-left groups" and criminals and said the government would not be "intimidated" months before next year's presidential election. Macron acknowledged "failures" in the policing of the riots and called for new operational methods. Police tactics are themselves under scrutiny: at least two teenagers have been seriously injured, each losing a hand, and the police watchdog is examining at least two dozen allegations of police violence. Lecornu has said more than 900 officers were injured in earlier protests.

Argentina: the dispute over the university funding law

Argentina's conflict runs through the courts. A 2025 University Funding Law requires inflation-linked salary increases backdated to December 2023, the restoration of student scholarships and more money for university operations. Congress passed it, Milei vetoed it, and Congress overrode the veto.

The government has not applied it. It argues that Congress approved the spending without identifying how it would be financed, and presidential spokesman Adrián Ravier said the law was "suspended" while the government pursues legal action. Milei, who campaigned on cutting public spending to tame inflation, has justified his vetoes of inflation-linked increases by saying "there is no money", and points to results: inflation down to around 2% a month and, in his words, 27 consecutive months of growth. Courts have ruled otherwise, including a Supreme Court decision in June, and a federal judge has begun fining the government 100,000 pesos, about $70, a day for failing to implement parts of the law.

Public spending on universities fell 41% in real terms in the first half of this year compared with the same period in 2023, according to the Center for National Economic Research of the University of Buenos Aires. María Teresa de Jesús, a chemistry professor at that university, told Al Jazeera she earns around $700 a month. The 16 October march outside parliament was largely peaceful, but a breakaway group clashed with police for about an hour; at least 25 people were arrested and eight officers injured. Security Minister Alejandra Monteoliva said on X that "the right to protest is not a right to exercise violence".

Beyond the three: Belgium, Italy and Portugal

The same weekend saw smaller protests elsewhere in Europe. In Brussels, Belgian student groups say they are protesting against rising education costs and reforms they fear will make higher education less accessible; around 30,000 people took part in an earlier mobilisation against education budget cuts planned by Prime Minister Bart De Wever, according to Belgian police figures cited by Veja. In Italy, a march against the high cost of living in Milan ended with police clearing the cathedral square with tear gas, and police in Bologna used water cannon and made seven arrests. In Portugal, tens of thousands marched in Lisbon over housing and living costs, in a country where house prices have doubled since 2017.

What to do with this information

The outcome in each country will be decided by a specific, boring mechanism, not by the size of the next march.

In Argentina, watch whether the government starts applying the university funding law or keeps contesting it in court while the daily fine accumulates. That is the single point on which the dispute turns.

In France, watch two things: whether the 3,000 substitute teachers promised for the 114 worst-affected secondary schools actually arrive, after the ministry said 2,000 had been dispatched, and whether the localised curfews begun in Lille, Douai, Wattignies and Denain reduce the unrest. Lecornu has so far ruled out a state of emergency, which the conservative Les Républicains leader Bruno Retailleau has requested. All of it plays out ahead of next year's presidential election.

In Albania, watch whether Rama holds out against the resignation demands while corruption investigations advance, including the arrest of the head of the intelligence service, and how Brussels assesses the country's accession process after condemning both the violence and the allegations of excessive force by police.

When a protest like this reaches your feed, do you know which of those mechanisms, a court ruling, a budget line or a ministry pledge, will actually decide whether anything changes?