Student Protests Erupt in Liège on First Day of Belgian School Mobilisation
Student protests in Belgium's French-speaking community reached Liège on 1 October 2026. Liège police said a call on social media brought pupils at about 8 a.m. to five schools in the city, where eggs, apples, barriers and firecrackers were thrown at schools and officers, and one member of a school's management was physically attacked.
Police told broadcaster RTBF that a fire was set near the Institut Marie-Thérèse on rue Hors-Château, into which scooters and barriers were thrown, road signs and street furniture were torn up and some vehicles were damaged. A glass door at the Collège Saint-Barthélemy was smashed with an iron bar, and a Carrefour Express shop on rue Saint-Léonard was vandalised.
Police reported five judicial arrests and one administrative arrest that day, and said there had been no further incident after 1 p.m. The street, closed during the clashes, reopened at 2 p.m. after the city cleared the fire damage. The students, inspired in part by similar protests in France, are demonstrating against education cuts and deteriorating school conditions in the French-speaking community.
Flemish broadcaster VRT reported that free-network and municipal secondary schools in Liège would stay closed on 2 October for safety reasons. The student movement that began in France had thus found its first foothold in French-speaking Belgium.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：列日地标列日-吉耶曼火车站。摄影：Michielverbeek，CC BY-SA 4.0，来源：Wikimedia Commons
