Key Facts

• The German group Gen Z regelt called for protests demanding more spending on schools, climate protection and housing, and opposing a return to mandatory military service.
• More than 160,000 people had registered online as intending to attend the German protests by Friday.
• About 10,000 people, mainly pupils, students and parents, were expected to gather at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate; rallies were also planned in Cologne, Munich, Frankfurt and Hamburg.
• Berlin police chief Barbara Slowik Meisel said she would deploy 1,500 additional officers and that police had no concrete evidence of planned coordinated looting.
• Germany’s federal pupils’ conference distanced itself from the protests, citing the initiative’s unclear organizational structure.
• French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said 70,000 police and gendarmes would be deployed across France on Saturday.
• Nuñez warned that calls for violent gatherings had appeared on social media and said the main risk might come after the organized cost-of-living demonstrations ended.
• The article says student demonstrations in recent weeks had affected Italy, Spain, Portugal, Albania and France.