"A wave of protests triggered by skyrocketing living costs and a looming recession is sweeping across Europe, testing the resolve of governments that have so far maintained unity in their costly economic war with Russia.
The public backlash against high prices for electricity and heating as temperatures begin to fall also is fueling tensions between European capitals over richer nations' larger relief packages, which poorer neighbors say are distorting the market and compounding the crisis.
On Thursday, thousands of people took to the streets across France to demand higher wages. Striking teachers, railway and health workers staged marches in dozens of cities, including Paris, snarling traffic and disrupting public transport.
In Belgium, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Germany, tens of thousands have marched in recent weeks, demanding pay raises to offset inflation, more state support, government intervention in the energy market and, in some instances, an end to sanctions against Russia.
Despite measures to support households and businesses totaling 264 billion euros ($266 billion), according to Brussels-based think tank Bruegel -- by far the largest such package in Europe -- Germany has seen weekly protest rallies since the end of the summer, many of them concentrated in the country's former communist east.
Popular support for Ukraine remains high across Europe and the protests in France haven't targeted Paris's Ukraine policy. Yet demonstrators in eastern Germany have been more political, demanding an end to Western sanctions against Russia in a warning to Europe about the political risks it could face should sanctions on Moscow drag on.
The unrest in Germany's east partly reflects old regional grievances and a local political culture that has long cultivated affinities with Russia. A solid majority of German voters still strongly support Kyiv and the Russia policy of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government, according to recent polls.
Centrist political parties, unions and civil-society organizations largely have steered clear of the anti-sanctions protests in the east. But the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, a far-right, pro-Russia opposition party and organizer of some of the demonstrations, has benefited from the mood. Its ratings have risen to 15% from 10% at the time of the sanctions in February, according to Politico's aggregate of polls, its highest in nearly three years.
The German protests have been widespread but comparatively small. Yet some moderate parties and union leaders have begun organizing rallies in the rest of the country to demand more state aid for people, in a sign that economic discontent -- if not opposition to supporting Ukraine -- is spreading despite the government's relief measures.
"This is merely the silence before the storm -- the discontent is great, and people do not have any sense that the government has a plausible strategy to master the crisis," said Manfred Gullner, head of Forsa, a pollster.
Nine percent of Germans say Mr. Scholz has a coherent strategy to overcome the energy crisis, Mr. Gullner said, at a time when three-quarters of all households are trying to reduce their energy consumption. The AfD is now attracting voters from established parties, as well as traditional nonvoters, he said.
"Different far-right groups are trying to recruit people at the rallies, and this is what worries me," said Georg Maier, interior minister of Thuringia, an eastern German state.
While government subsidies will cushion the impact of rising energy prices on households and small businesses, many manufacturers have throttled production because of rising costs.
Most French people support sanctions against Russia and weapons deliveries to Ukraine, according to surveys. But European leaders fear the economic stress could undermine public support for these policies or the governments that back them.
Public-sector workers struggling with inflation might not understand why the government can't afford to raise their pay when it can send hundreds of millions of euros in military equipment to Ukraine, one French official said." [1]
1. World News: Soaring Prices Spark Protests in Europe
Pancevski, Bojan; Bisserbe, Noemie.
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 28 Oct 2022: A.8.
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