Protests around the world: why people take to the streets against left and right alike

For more than ten years – and again today – people across the world have taken to the streets against every kind of government – centre, right and left – dissatisfied with every party. An investigation by The Injustice Chronicle into protest data from 2009 to 2026, the OECD’s trust surveys and the governments’ own statements shows that the problem is not one party or the other. It is the system they all govern in.

The files leave no doubt. Between 2009 and 2019, mass protests grew by 11.5 percent a year, in every region of the world (CSIS). In 2023, new protests broke out in 83 countries; in 2024, the Carnegie Endowment counted more than 160 significant anti-government protests; in 2025, protests in more than 70 countries (Carnegie). In 2025 and 2026 alone, they hit socialist governments in Albania and Spain, a centrist one in France, right-wing governments in Belgium, Serbia and the United States, and a communist-led one in Nepal. Across 30 OECD democracies, 44 percent distrust their national government; only 39 percent trust it (OECD). And every government gave the same answer: the protesters were paid, foreign-steered or extremist. None has presented evidence.

On 17 October 2026, the pattern played out on a single day. In Tirana, students marched for their future while masked men attacked public buildings. Across France, some 550,000 people joined about 110 marches, according to the interior ministry; the organisers counted 800,000. Two governments of opposite colours. The same street.

The claim

Wherever crowds fill the streets, the same two sentences follow. The government says the unrest comes from the other side. The opposition says it proves the government has failed – and that it would do better.

Albania shows both in one week. Prime Minister Edi Rama blamed the destruction on “clowns” in masks from “a politics that has lost”, and told Reuters that “governments are changed through democratic elections”. Opposition leader Sali Berisha declared that the protesters’ demands were his party’s demands, and demanded Rama’s “immediate resignation”. Rama governs from the left, Berisha leads the right. Each presents the other as the problem.

Two sentences that sound like opposites. In truth they are the same excuse: it is always the other side. The files tell a different story. We documented that week in Tirana, file by file, in our File Check A Better Future – or a Fight for Power?

File 1: the protests follow no party

Seven of the largest protest waves of 2025 and 2026 hit seven governments that span the whole spectrum – and they ran at the same time. In 2025 the Carnegie Endowment’s Global Protest Tracker recorded protests in more than 70 countries.

In the United States, the pattern reaches beyond the “No Kings” marches. In Minnesota, protests against immigration enforcement escalated in 2026; we examined the structural contradiction behind it in Minnesota: Immigration Enforcement, Migration and Power.

Left, centre, right, national-conservative, communist: none of these governments was spared. Whoever governs, a part of the people goes to the streets. The Carnegie tracker finds the same pattern across regime types: in free, partly free and not free countries alike.

File 2: distrust is the majority, whoever governs

The OECD asked nearly 60,000 people in 30 member democracies, in late 2023, whether they trust their national government. 44 percent said low or no trust; 39 percent said high or moderately high, the OECD reported. The 30 countries were governed by every colour, from left to right.

The next wave, run in 2025 across 38 countries and published in June 2026, found the same balance: 40 percent trust, 43 percent distrust, according to a summary by Transparency International New Zealand.

What divides trust from distrust in the OECD data is not the party in power. It is whether people feel they count. Of those who say people like them have a say in what the government does, 69 percent trust it; of those who say they have none, 22 percent do. Only 32 percent think their government would adopt the views people give in a public consultation, and about 30 percent believe it can resist the influence of corporations (summary of the 2024 report).

File 3: the same three grievances, under every colour

Carnegie’s researchers sorted the triggers of 2025’s protests into three groups. Each group spans governments of opposite colours (Carnegie, 3 December 2025):

• Corruption: North Macedonia, Spain, the Gambia, Nepal, the Philippines, Mongolia, Indonesia, Morocco, Mexico, Serbia.
• Abuse of power against democratic rules: Indonesia, the Central African Republic, Mali, Togo, Ukraine, Brazil, the United States.
• Economic hardship: Belgium, Indonesia, France, Slovakia, Romania, Argentina, Greece, Chile, Angola, Ecuador, Spain.

Spain under a socialist government and Argentina under a libertarian one sit in the same row. So do Belgium under the right and Greece under the centre-right with France under the centre. The grievance is the same; the colour of the government is not.

The young carry it everywhere. In Nepal, Madagascar, Morocco, Kenya, Indonesia and Peru, protests in 2025 were led by Generation Z (Khaleej Times); two heads of government, in Nepal and Mongolia, left office. Carnegie notes this is not new: youth protest rates in 2017–2019 were similar or higher.

File 4: going back – ten years, everywhere at once

This year’s chain is not an exception. Going back year by year, the pattern holds.

2024. The Carnegie Global Protest Tracker recorded more than 160 significant anti-government protests, in every region of the world.

2023. New significant protests broke out in 83 countries. Seven of them had seen no major protest in the previous five years: Denmark, French Polynesia, Mozambique, Norway, the Republic of Ireland, Suriname and Sweden. Rising prices and pension reforms were among the main drivers.

2009–2019. Before that, the Center for Strategic and International Studies measured an average rise in mass protests of 11.5 percent a year over a decade, in every region of the world – the fastest growth in sub-Saharan Africa, the largest concentration in the Middle East and North Africa.

More than ten years of protest, in dozens of countries at the same time, under governments of every colour: this is not the ordinary protest every democracy knows.

File 5: every government blames someone else

When the streets fill, governments of opposite colours give the same answer: the protesters are not the real protesters. Someone else – paid, foreign or extremist – is behind them.

The accusations point in opposite directions. A centrist minister in Paris blames the far left. A right-wing president in Washington blames the radical left and Soros. A nationalist in Belgrade blames the West. A socialist in Tirana blames paid men and foreign hands. What they share is the move itself: the anger is explained away before it is answered.

Brussels draws a different line. In its statement of 18 October 2026 on the protests in Albania, the European Commission condemns the arson and the attacks on state institutions, but it names no foreign hands and no paid agitators. It speaks of “grievances”, which “should be handled through constructive dialogue”, and warns that the response to violence “must remain within the law and proportionate”.

On the same day, 17 October 2026, Tirana and some 110 marches across France saw the same scene: young people marching over their future, rioters attacking public buildings, and a government saying the rioters were someone else.

File 6: same country, both camps

Changing the party in power does not end the protests. In Albania and Germany, where both camps have governed, the street looks the same.

Albania. Under Sali Berisha’s Democratic Party, the collapse of the pyramid schemes in 1997 drove people who had lost their savings onto the streets. The US State Department’s human rights report for 1997 records, citing unofficial estimates, that “over 2,000 persons were killed” in the first six months of the year, that an estimated 30 or more police officers were killed, and that a state of emergency was in force from 2 March. Under Edi Rama’s Socialist Party, the streets filled again in October 2026, with 132 police officers injured.

Germany. Under Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU), about 5,000 people protested against social cuts during his visit to Marburg. The AfD presents itself as the alternative. According to the ZEW, its programme would cost the state about 97 billion euros in revenue; a wealthy household with an income of 180,000 euros would gain about 19,190 euros a year, while an average family would not be better off. On 26 February 2026 the Cologne Administrative Court found it sufficiently certain that efforts against the free democratic basic order are being pursued within the party, while barring, for now, its classification as confirmed right-wing extremist.

What they have in common: the system

Neither left nor right governs for the whole people; the protests against both are the evidence. The claim “the other side is to blame, we will do better” is not supported. If one side were the problem, the protests would follow that side. They do not: the files show mass protests under socialists, centrists, conservatives, nationalists and communists, in free and unfree countries alike, and under both camps in the same country, over the same three grievances – corruption, abuse of power and economic hardship.

Distrust is the majority across the democracies measured, whoever governs. The dividing line in the OECD data is not party but voice: people who feel they have a say trust their government more than three times as often as those who feel they have none.

The governments’ counter-claim is not supported either. Rama, Núñez, Trump and Vučić each say the unrest was made by others – paid men, the far left, Soros, the West. None of them has put evidence on the public record for it. Violent groups inside protests are real; the author saw masked men in Tirana. But blaming outsiders does not answer the people who marched over housing, wages, corruption and their future.

That people protest at all is evidence that those in power have failed part of the people. The files show this failure under every colour: left, centre and right, in dozens of countries at the same time, and under both camps in the same country. Each side promises to do better than the other. The files show that none has. In Albania, Berisha’s government ended in a state of emergency in 1997; Rama’s faces the streets in 2026. In Germany, the party that promises to do better than Merz would give the most to those who already have the most. Every government in these files blames someone else: paid agitators, the far left, foreign hands. None has shown evidence. Whoever organised these protests, they found the gaps – and the gaps are on record: in housing costs, in a collapsed canopy, in pension cuts, in a country’s future. No extremist and no foreign power can fill the streets without grievances that already exist. If the system served the whole people, there would be nothing to mobilise. The problem is not which party governs. It is the system they all govern in.

Sources

Data and research: OECD, press release on the 2024 Trust Survey · CSIS, The Age of Mass Protests, 2 March 2020 · Carnegie Endowment, Global Protest Tracker reviews of 2023, 2024 and 2025 · Albanian State Police press conference, 17 October 2026, as reported in The Injustice Chronicle

File 6. US State Department, Country Report on Human Rights Practices 1997: Albania · ZEW, press release of 20 January 2025 and household figures (Statista, after ZEW) · Cologne Administrative Court, decision of 26 February 2026, reported by ZDF · Marburg protest, hessenschau

The governments’ own words: Rama, 18 October 2026 and Al Jazeera, 16 October 2026 · Núñez and Macron, 17 October 2026 · Trump, 19 October 2025 · Vučić, European Western Balkans, 20 February 2025

Summaries of OECD data (secondary): Transparency International New Zealand on the 2026 results · Sharing4Good on the 2024 results

Reports on individual protests (secondary): PBS on Spain · PBS on France · Eunews on Belgium · Eurointegration on Serbia · Axios on the United States · Tribune on Nepal · Khaleej Times on Gen Z protests · Albanian statements: Gazeta Tema, Gazeta Shqip

Still to obtain from the primary source: the OECD 2026 report itself (the 40/43 percent figures and the say-gap are taken from summaries), and the Carnegie tracker’s country entries.