In April of last year, dozens of students set off from Serbia, intent on making it to Strasbourg, France on bicycles. The aim of the arduous, 13-day transcontinental journey was simple: to make their voices heard in Europe and beyond.
In their home city of Novi Sad, students had been holding near-daily protests after a deadly roof collapse at the city’s main railway station. As their push for accountability and justice spread across the country, it was met with baton-wielding police, teargas and a political class that branded these young people as traitors.
In April of last year, dozens of students set off from Serbia, intent on making it to Strasbourg, France on bicycles. The aim of the arduous, 13-day transcontinental journey was simple: to make their voices heard in Europe and beyond.
In their home city of Novi Sad, students had been holding near-daily protests after a deadly roof collapse at the city’s main railway station. As their push for accountability and justice spread across the country, it was met with baton-wielding police, teargas and a political class that branded these young people as traitors.
The long-serving leader of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, has conceded defeat, ushering in a seismic political shift after a historic election that pitted the increasingly authoritarian leader against a student-led movement that had spent two years protesting against his government. As news broke that Vučić’s 12 years in power had come to an end, celebrations erupted on the streets of Belgrade and other cities. But how did we get here - and what happens now? The Guardian's Europe live correspondent, Jakub Krupa, explains
I saw a remarkable experiment take shape in Belgrade. Its lessons should be studied by other European countries struggling with unrest
More than a decade ago, the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told an interviewer in Belgrade that Serbia was “a country where the future happens first”. The phrase circulated widely on Serbian social media in the weeks before Sunday’s election, but in a way that could not have seemed possible 10 years ago. Who would then have imagined that Serbia today could be at the forefront of global democratic change?
The images from Belgrade on Sunday night – people dancing and crying in the streets, while in Novi Sad, the city that sparked the student movement, a flag bearing the image of the convicted war criminal Vojislav Šešelj, which had hung from a building since the 1990s, was torn down – reinforced the feeling that the future had truly arrived.
Aleksandar Matković is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology in Barcelona and a fellow at the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. He works on environmental history, political economy and the history of Yugoslavia
After freedom, we want to give our people something radical: a normal, functioning state
Two years ago, I harboured no political ambition whatsoever. I was a student at the faculty of technical sciences in Novi Sad, my home town, pursuing a PhD in human resources and simply living my life. That was until the canopy collapse at the newly renovated train station in Novi Sad in November 2024, which killed 16 people. I took part in street protests and rallies in response to this shocking event, and like many others, realised that it needed to be a turning point.
This was not an unavoidable tragedy. Systemic corruption and a culture of entrenched impunity were obvious factors in the collapse. But instead of ordering a full and impartial investigation and coming clean on official failings, the authorities began pushing back against us for demanding justice. We were vilified and attacked in the streets but law enforcement did nothing. So we took refuge in our lecture halls and schools, barricading ourselves inside faculty buildings, ready for a long haul.
Novak Simin is a member of Serbia’s Student List movement
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Vučić’s 12-year reign looks to have been ended by record turnout of voters in election provoked by student-led protests
The long-serving leader of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, has conceded defeat, ushering in a seismic political shift after a historic election that saw the increasingly authoritarian leader pitted against a student-led movement that had spent two years protesting against his government.
Vučić pointed to preliminary results that suggested voters had overwhelmingly backed the students, potentially giving them a majority in the country’s 250-seat parliament.
Security forces to include elite units usually used for counter-terrorism after worst street violence in years
France will deploy about 70,000 police around the country on Saturday as the government seeks to prevent more civil unrest after some of the worst street violence in years erupted on the fringes of cost-of-living protests last weekend.
The interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, said on Friday the security forces would include elite units usually used for counter-terrorism operations and hostage rescues, adding that there had been social media calls for violence from “ultra-left” groups.
As riot police encircled Place de la République last week, lobbing teargas canisters to disperse demonstrators, the conductor Étienne Jarrier and his orchestra played on. They kept playing even after everyone else had disappeared and teargas was being fired into the central Paris square.
It was only when Jarrier noticed his musicians were being directly targeted that he ordered them to stop. “There were teargas canisters landing in the double bass and music stand cases, and starting fires the musicians had to stamp out,” he told the Guardian.
Protests and fringe violence expose sharp divide between marginalised and immigrant youth and those with greater prospects
Martina Miccichè was filming riot police kicking and beating a teenager with batons as they dragged him along Piazza del Duomo, the central Milan square hosting its cathedral, when she was struck by a flying object, causing a deep gash and bruising near her right eye.
The journalist had joined hundreds of mostly young people marching through the northern Italian city on Saturday afternoon to protest over soaring living costs and unaffordable housing, echoing the wider wave of economic discontent fuelling protests across Europe.
Serbia’s 6.5 million voters go to the polls on 25 October in a watershed parliamentary election characterised by civil unrest, a new political landscape, allegations of irregularities, an uncertain outcome and the potential of far-reaching consequences.
Leaders criticised for spreading misleading information as France prepares for further protests this weekend
Emmanuel Macron has accused Donald Trump and other foreign leaders of making “stupid comments” about France’s street unrest for political gain, as the country prepared for more protests this weekend.
Speaking during a visit to Qatar, the French president did not name names but said “manipulation of information” after Saturday’s riots had led to “comments that are as unacceptable as they are stupid, from many people, including foreign leaders”.
Teachers face being banned from wearing politically-contentious insignia – such as pro-Palestinian badges – following a review of antisemitism in schools that found 60% of Jewish pupils reported suffering abuse.
Unorthodox campaign is challenging the ruling party’s 14-year reign with a bold democratic experiment
On a cool autumn evening, a team of Serbian student volunteers went canvassing in the housing estates of Krnjača, a Belgrade suburb. They were equipped with lanyards emblazoned with the word “victory”, a stock list of questions and a mobile app that mapped visited homes and the level of support in each.
The volunteers were part of a mass student movement, Student List, that has rocked Serbia with two years of constant protests. On Sunday, the group will represent the most serious challenge Aleksandar Vučić has faced in his 12 increasingly authoritarian years in power, by putting forward their own candidates in parliamentary elections.
Officers are instruments of state whose job is to repress, rather than manage, public dissent
Familiar images of teargas clouds drifting across Paris squares, police baton charges against masked protesters and terrified teenagers floored – and worse – by stun grenades have once again focused the world’s attention on France’s policing methods.
While most of its western European neighbours generally favour police tactics that prioritise crowd containment and de-escalation, France has long responded to social movements that take to the streets with, at times, shocking physical force.
Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered outside Japan’s National Diet in Tokyo, demanding Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s resignation over her government’s stance on Palestine and its alignment with US and Israeli military policies.
The protesters expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people and condemned the ongoing Israeli war on the Gaza Strip and aggression across West Asia.
Demonstrators criticized Japan’s refusal to recognize the State of Palestine, its failure to impose sanctions on “Israel,” and its continued purchases of weapons from Israeli companies.
Protesters oppose Japan’s military expansion
Participants also voiced opposition to the government’s plans to increase military spending, revise Article 9 of Japan’s Constitution, which renounces war, and ease restrictions on arms exports.
Speakers criticized military cooperation between Tokyo and “Israel”, particularly reports of plans to purchase Israeli-made drones.
Protesters argued that these drones had been developed and tested through operations involving the direct targeting and killing of Palestinians. They called on the Japanese government to end all military partnerships with the Israeli occupation.
Protestors demand closure of Israeli embassy
In September, over 100 pro-Palestine demonstrators gathered outside of the Israeli embassy in Tokyo and called for the expulsion of the newly appointed Israeli ambassador to Japan, Emmanuel Navon, and the closure of the embassy.
The protesters denounced the Israeli war on Gaza and criticized Tokyo’s and Tel Aviv’s military relationship.
Protesters carried Palestinian flags and banners condemning the Israeli aggression, while chanting slogans calling for freedom for Palestine and an end to the war.
The Network Against Japan Arms Trade (NAJAT), one of the main groups organizing the protest, stated that the demonstration was intended to formally convey its demands to the Japanese state.
NAJAT said the appointment of a new Israeli ambassador provided an opportunity to renew calls for his expulsion and urge Japan to take a stronger stance against “Israel.”
Protesters further called on Japanese authorities to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and demanded that the government close the Israeli embassy in Tokyo.
Graham Linehan, the Father Ted creator, may have been unfairly arrested by the Metropolitan Police because of his gender-critical views, the police watchdog has said.
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