Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at government efforts to quell mass unrest in France, recent Israeli settler attacks in the West Bank, and Italy’s cost-of-living crisis.
Who’s to Blame for France’s Unrest?
France announced a partial ban on protests in Paris on Monday and ordered curfews in certain areas in an effort to reassert control amid one of the country’s most violent domestic crises in decades. “My determination to restore order is absolute,” Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said, vowing to use “whatever tools are at the government’s disposal” to quell the unrest.
Large-scale demonstrations have rocked France for weeks as young people demand education reform, denounce high fuel costs and poor public services, and cast doubt on the effectiveness of a 2027 budget proposal. Rioting, looting, and arson have prompted police to use heavy-handed tactics, such as tear gas and water cannons, to disperse protesters.
The demonstrations reached new heights over the weekend, when an estimated half a million people took to the streets across France. According to the Interior Ministry, nearly 1,000 security personnel were injured, around 2,400 protesters were arrested, and at least 3,000 businesses were pillaged across the country.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez offered to step down on Monday after admitting that French police had been unprepared for the scale of the unrest. President Emmanuel Macron did not accept his resignation, but that didn’t stop Nuñez from sending a second letter of intent. “I am resubmitting my resignation because I am responsible for everything that is happening,” Nuñez told France Inter.
The country’s ruling coalition has instead blamed the hard-left France Unbowed party for fomenting the crisis. “There is, after all, a far-left movement that wants to cause—we can’t put it any more strongly—profound unrest in the country in the run-up to the presidential election” next April, Lecornu said.
The far-right National Rally party has also accused France Unbowed of stoking unrest, and it argues that the rioting is evidence that Macron has lost control of the country.
Both France Unbowed and National Rally stand to gain from public discontent with mainstream parties. However, only France Unbowed leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon has expressed support for the peaceful elements of the student-led movement, denouncing alleged police brutality while arguing that the demonstrations are the result of “10 disastrous years” of Macron’s government.
Meanwhile, some foreign powers have capitalized on France’s turmoil to promote their own political agendas. “The migrants have taken over France,” U.S. President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday. “They must CLOSE THE BORDERS, FAST!” There has been no reported evidence of undocumented migrants worsening the protests.
The unrest has since spread to other European countries, including Belgium and Italy. Another round of massive demonstrations across France, dubbed “Act II,” is scheduled for Saturday.
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The World This Week
Tuesday, Oct. 20: Israeli President Isaac Herzog visits Hungary.
Wednesday, Oct. 21: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney begins a three-day trip to Turkey.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz separately hosts Mongolian President Khurelsukh Ukhnaa and Czech President Petr Pavel.
Thursday, Oct. 22: A discovery hearing is held for U.S. President Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the BBC.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hosts Vietnamese President To Lam.
Sunday, Oct. 25: Brazil holds a presidential runoff election.
Serbia holds snap parliamentary elections.
Bulgaria holds a presidential election.
What We’re Following
Israel responds to settler attacks. Israeli police arrested 10 people on Monday as part of an investigation into recent attacks in the occupied West Bank. The suspects, all of whom were Israeli citizens, were detained on suspicion of involvement in acts of violence, violating a closed military zone order, and illegal construction.
On Friday, dozens of masked Israeli settlers injured at least 20 people during a coordinated attack on Palestinian civilians harvesting olives in the West Bank. Among those wounded was Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine, who was wearing a protective vest identifying her as a member of the press. The next day, settlers attacked a group of European diplomats in the West Bank, damaging a diplomatic vehicle.
Foreign governments have urged Israel to denounce the extremist attacks. Even Israel’s closest ally, the United States, applauded its decision to detain the 10 suspects, with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee calling the arrests a “very positive development” in punishing those responsible for the assault on Levine.
However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stopped short of condemning the settlers’ actions, instead saying that the facts surrounding Levine’s attack were “unclear” and that the European diplomats did not coordinate with Israel’s military when they entered a “sensitive area with a history of confrontations.” Israeli settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal under international law.
Protests flare in Italy. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni convened an emergency security meeting on Monday to address violent cost-of-living demonstrations in Milan and nearby cities. The protests were seen as an offshoot of the youth-led crisis embroiling France and other neighbors.
More than 5,000 people gathered in Milan over the weekend to denounce rising prices and poor public services. Demonstrators looted stores and vandalized private property, and police responded with tear gas and water cannons. Several people were reportedly injured, including police officers, and local authorities detained more than 270 individuals, mostly minors.
“To demonstrate is a right. To lay our cities to waste is not,” Meloni wrote on X on Saturday, calling the attendees “thugs” who have exploited the protests to “sow chaos.”
The far-right prime minister also called on the opposition to “unequivocally condemn these acts of violence,” and she noted that some left-wing leaders had attended peaceful demonstrations led by Italy’s second-largest labor union. In response, Democratic Party leader Elly Schlein stressed that rioting should not be used to stifle the voices of peaceful protesters.
Political violence in Australia. Australian lawmaker Helen Haines was hit by a white Toyota Land Cruiser and injured outside of her office in the state of Victoria on Monday, prompting Canberra to activate the country’s counterterrorism unit. The independent parliamentarian was in critical condition at time of writing, while the driver was taken into in police custody.
“It is too early in this investigation for me to provide you with details of what the motivation is behind this attack,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Monday, though he warned that anonymous social media users have changed the nature of political commentary in the country. “The temperature has undoubtedly been increased,” Albanese added.
Political violence in Australia used to be extremely rare, but threats to lawmakers have increased in recent years. According to Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, harassing and threatening behavior against high officeholders increased from 951 incidents in the 12 months ending in June 2025 to 1,067 incidents over the 12 months ending this June.
Odds and Ends
A Japanese-led space mission set off for Mars on Monday, but Earth’s red neighbor is not its final destination. JAXA, Tokyo’s space agency, has its sights on Phobos, one of two Martian moons that mission project manager Yasuhiro Kawakatsu described as “the most important unexplored body within the solar system.”
For decades, scientists have been baffled as to how Phobos and its twin moon, Deimos, were formed. Using a rover named Idefix, after the dog in the Asterix comics, the team now hopes to descend to Phobos twice to pick up dirt and rock samples that could offer clues to the moons’ creation.