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Protesters in Brussels and Liege clashed with police on Saturday as a series of rallies turned violent across parts of Europe.
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Video footage circulating on social media shows police firing water cannons and tear gas in an effort to break up people taking part in cost-of-living protests in the capital.
In Brussels, officers fired tear gas against youths throwing bottles and other projectiles in the Bourse district, a journalist for the AFP news agency said, whilst water cannons were also reportedly used against smaller groups of demonstrators in the eastern city of Liege.
Belgian Interior Minister Bernard Quintin said on Saturday that the situation was “no longer simply a protest.”
“It is pure and simple violence, organised and repeated with the aim of destabilising our society,” he wrote in a post on social media, adding that “all necessary measures will be taken to restore order in the face of the rioters.”
High school students in Belgium have demonstrated in recent weeks against rising education costs, joining students in France who have been rallying against teacher shortages, poor facilities, and overcrowded classrooms.
It comes as mass protests in Paris spiralled into scenes of chaos over the weekend.
A Euronews crew were assaulted by looters and rioters in the French capital on Saturday, near the Place de la Republique, as they covered the ongoing demonstrations.
The crew were making their way to another location when they were confronted by masked individuals looting a nearby Intermarché Express supermarket.
“We were standing on Boulevard de Magenta, not far from a supermarket that was being looted by young people, young adults, teenagers. When they saw we were filming, they started hitting my cameraman and attempted to take his microphone and they encircled us,” Estelle Nilsson-Julien, Euronews’ correspondent in Paris, said.
“They then pushed him against the wall and started hitting and punching him. They also hit me. They punched him in the face, but because he was wearing goggles and a mask, he was not harmed,” she added.
A march moving along the Boulevard de Clichy towards the Place de Clichy across the other side of Paris remained peaceful, another Euronews journalist on the ground reported, but tensions were ramping up as more and more people arrived in the area.
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