BRUSSELS (AP) — Police and protesters clashed in Brussels on Friday as tens of thousands of people rallied separately in the Belgian capital against rising living costs and budget-tightening measures introduced by the government.
Dozens of protesters, many of them young, dressed in black and wearing masks, threw rocks and firecrackers at police at the central Brussels railway station, before setting several fires, one to a pile of city bikes and electric scooters.
Riot police responded with tear gas, water cannons and baton charges, pushing the protesters from area.
Police said that those “who caused the problems of public order are not linked” to the anti-austerity rally, which they said drew around 30,000 people. Organizers said that 50,000 people turned out.
The clashes came after a week of tensions in the city of Liege, where authorities placed a ban on public gatherings as students clashed with police and vandalized shops. More than 200 people were arrested in Liege and dozens of police injured.
Union movements had hoped to draw tens of thousands of people to Brussels as the Belgian government struggles to finalize a budget for next year. Belgium is mired in public debt, like its neighbor France and also Italy.
Union leaders said the rioters had nothing to do with their rally. Union members and their supporters were dressed colorfully, clad in red or green, and their march through the Brussels city center passed off peacefully.
In France, student unions vowed on Friday to keep up protests after scoring what they called their first win in a campaign that is increasingly supported by Paris’ elite universities, with 141 schools still shut around the country.
The protests have snowballed into a wider movement, with more university students weighing in to express their anger over what they call a dysfunctional system, worsened by spending cuts spurred by France’s budget crunch.
Student and teacher unions have called for another round of nationwide school strikes next Tuesday.
France’s education ministry is in the process of urgently contacting around 3,000 spare teachers who could be sent to schools with the most pressing needs, often located in low-income areas, Education Minister Edouard Geffray said.
Speaking during a visit to a school in the Paris, he said more than 100 teaching staff had been injured so far in the nationwide protests.