After Violence Tried to Steal the Narrative, Cost-of-Living Protesters Vow: ‘We Are Not the Riot’

Fed up with a political establishment they say has abandoned working families, demonstrators return to the streets determined to make their message heard.

It began with a silence louder than any chant. In the central square, where the smell of smoke still hung faintly in the air and police barriers stood like skeletons from last weekend’s chaos, demonstrators lifted their signs and waited. Among them was a grandmother holding a calculator, a supermarket cashier with a torn electricity bill taped to her coat, and a college student whose sign read simply, “I should not have to choose between tuition and food.” They were fed up with the political establishment and rising cost of living, and after violence overshadowed protests the previous weekend, they had come this time with a single, tightly measured goal: to reclaim the story. “They want to show us as criminals,” said a union representative, steering a group of young marchers away from a line of officers. “But we are not criminals. We are people who work and still cannot afford to live.” Organizers had held four emergency meetings during the week to plan the response. There were new rules. No masks. No physical contact with police. No straying from the designated path. Even the music was changed; instead of hard rap and pounding drums, they chose the quiet hum of a single saxophonist at the front, playing a mournful tune. The march would be a testimony, not a confrontation. The atmosphere felt less like a traditional protest than a funeral procession for the country’s economic stability. That was the point. “We are mourning our lives, our savings, our hopes,” said a man with a small child sitting on his shoulders. “Let them see that our pain is real.”

Last weekend’s protests were supposed to have been an explosion of public anger at an economy that had turned unforgiving. Instead, the images that dominated the news cycles were of a city under siege. It began when a small group of unidentified individuals, apparently unaffiliated with the main organizers, peeled off from the larger crowd and attacked banks, phone stores, and a government building. They pulled down traffic lights, set dumpsters alight, and daubed slogans on walls in garish red paint. By the time the police had restored order, dozens of storefronts had been shattered and 140 people had been taken into custody. The dramatic footage punctured the movement’s carefully built credibility in a matter of hours. For the political class, it was a gift. “This is what happens when you give inflammatory speeches about poverty,” one right-wing television host declared. “You get chaos.” But in the days that followed, a quieter story emerged. Among the 140 arrested, most had no criminal record; five were students, three were nurses, and one was a 66-year-old retired postal worker who said she had been caught by tear gas while trying to leave the area. The violence, organizers said, had been the work of a handful of agents provocateurs, possibly including undercover police. They could not prove it. But they repeated it until the message stuck. “We will not let a minority rewrite our story,” said Tomas Ribeiro, a union leader who had spent the weekend in a hospital recovering from a broken finger. “If they think violence can silence us, they do not understand the strength of our anger.” It was a turning point, and everyone sensed it.

The anger that fills the streets is not an abstraction; it is a concrete arithmetic of survival. In the past eighteen months, the price of essential goods in many parts of the country has risen by more than twenty percent. Rents have climbed twice as fast as average salaries. Utility companies have sent bills that leave people staring at the ceiling; food banks report record demand from households with at least one full-time worker. Behind every placard handed out at these rallies is a personal story of slow, grinding decline. Aisha Gordon, a community health worker and mother of two, has become something of an accidental spokesperson after she posted a photograph of a week’s worth of groceries on social media. “This used to cost me 80 euros,” she said, pointing to the image now printed on a flyer. “Now it costs me 130. And my salary has not moved in three years.” The chasm between everyday expenses and everyday earnings is the true backdrop of the cost-of-living protests. Yet the marchers’ fury is directed not simply at markets or inflation, but at a political establishment that they see as strangely untouched by the pain. Lawmakers have passed no significant rent control legislation, rejected a temporary freeze on energy tariffs, and continued to award themselves automatic pay adjustments. “We are told that the market will fix it,” Gordon said. “We are told to wait. But waiting is a luxury we cannot afford.” Every time an official uses the word “resilience,” she added, it sounds like an insult. The result is a profound crisis of trust, one that no favorable economic statistic can easily repair.

In an attempt to respond, political leaders have walked an awkward line between understanding and caution. The interior minister called last weekend’s violence “an attack on democracy” and promised an expanded police presence at any future rallies. The finance minister acknowledged “real social pressure” and announced a new expert working group to study the effects of inflation on poor households—a move that was met with jeers by many demonstrators, who saw it as another delay tactic. Councils in several cities have even hired private crowd-management consultants to advise on de-escalation techniques. But the establishment’s nervousness is unmistakable. “The greatest danger for them is not the broken windows,” said Dr. Lena Marsh, a political historian who studies social movements. “It is the possibility that a peaceful, organized, popular movement could start presenting demands that ordinary citizens begin to see as reasonable. Because then the debate changes.” Marsh explains that public officials are caught in a dilemma: if they sit down with the organizers, they legitimize street protest as a form of politics; if they refuse, they feed the very anger that turns some people toward violence. “Last weekend’s chaos gave them a temporary reprieve. But it will not last. The cost of living is not going to drop, and the political establishment is running out of excuses.” Her assessment matches what many demonstrators feel: that the system no longer works for the people who depend on it most. “Every government in the last twenty years has made promises,” said a veteran protester, a gray-haired man who carried a photograph of his wife, who was too ill to attend. “Now we are making one: we are not leaving until they speak to us.”

This week’s movement is determined not to repeat the mistakes of the previous one. The new manual being handed out at rallies reads like a cross between a military code of conduct and a homeowner’s guide to neighborliness. “Look out for one another,” the opening page says. “If you see someone in a mask, move away and alert a steward. Let the police do their work. We are not their enemies.” Organizers have also implemented a “buddy system,” pairing every marcher with at least one companion, checking that no one is carrying dangerous objects, and arranging to sweep the streets after each rally. “We are going to make this the best-mannered protest the country has ever seen,” said Nina Sabat, a campaign coordinator, with a wry smile. She is part of a new generation of activists who understand that, in the age of social media, optics are everything. The “Not the Riot” hashtag has featured videos of protesters volunteering in soup kitchens, sorting recyclables, and reading stories to children in the quiet zones set up near the march route. There is even a viral series called “Receipts, Not Riots,” in which families present their weekly shopping slips as evidence of the crisis. The strategy has a certain audacity. Instead of hiding from the label of “extremists,” the cost-of-living protesters are embracing the image of respectability, aware that nothing undermines a government’s preferred narrative faster than a well-dressed crowd singing national anthems and picking up litter. “We will not let them turn our despair into a spectacle of chaos,” Sabat said. “That is their trap, and we refuse to walk into it.”

The days ahead will test the movement’s discipline. More rallies are planned, more citizens are expected, and the pressure to produce a dramatic moment—whether for television or for social media—will only increase. Last weekend’s violence remains a warning and a shadow. One bottle thrown at the wrong time could undo all the careful efforts of the past week. But there is also a growing sense that this moment has become larger than a single march. It is about whether a democratic society can absorb the frustrations of the people it claims to serve. The demonstrators know they are not asking for charity; they are asking for the basic machinery of a decent life. “We are not going anywhere,” said Maria Calloway, an organizer from the city’s east side. “The political establishment can call us names, send police, ignore our signs, but we will be back, because we have no other option. We are not politicians or millionaires. We are the people who keep this country running, and we are tired.” As the final crowds dispersed, a young woman stopped to remove a piece of tape from a streetlamp and placed it neatly in the bin. It was a small gesture, but it felt deliberate, almost defiant. The windows had not been broken this time. But the message, amplified by a thousand quiet footsteps, was unmistakable. Rising prices and broken trust have brought them here. Whether anyone is listening is another question. But the cost-of-living protests are not going to fade away, because the conditions that created them are still growing.