Shops in The Hague board up ahead of Gen Z protest on Saturday

Several shops in the centre of The Hague have boarded up their windows ahead of a possible Gen Z protest on Saturday, October 31. Some business owners say they have received threats as calls for protest are circulating on social media.

Shops board up as authorities stay "alert & prepared"

Guess, Kruidvat and ICI Paris XL on the Grote Marktstraat and Tommy Hilfiger on the Hoogstraat have covered their windows with wooden boards. The Bijenkorf and Ogér plan to do the same on Friday evening, Siebel Jewelry will stay closed on Saturday, and other shops are hiring extra security.

Bas Winkler of the city-centre business association Binnenstad in Bedrijf told RTL Nieuws that several business owners had received threats by phone. “It’s difficult to judge whether these are distasteful jokes or whether they will actually be carried out,” he said.

Calls to protest spread on social media

Calls to protest have been shared on social media in recent days, including in a Telegram group called “GenZ in Opstand”. According to the AD, the plan is to gather on the Malieveld at 2pm and walk to the Binnenhof and the city centre. It is not clear who is behind the calls.

No demonstration has been registered with the municipality, which says it is “alert and prepared”. A spokesperson for Mayor Jan van Zanen said police would be visibly present and would act if public order was disrupted.

Minister of the Interior Pieter Heerma (CDA) said there were “worrying signs” about demonstrations in several large cities. “People are free to protest in this country, and that’s something we value highly. But behave yourselves, and don’t get dragged into any trouble,” he said, according to NU.nl.

Student unions keep their distance as schools warn parents

Student organisations say they know very little about the anticipated protests. A spokesperson for the national student union LSVb told news agency ANP that nobody is actively organising anything. “We think that it’s mostly an online thing,” they said. The Interstedelijk Studenten Overleg (ISO) said it had no idea what the protest was about and would not be getting involved.

In The Hague, vocational school ROC Mondriaan urged students who do protest to keep it peaceful and not get drawn into violence.

Other cities are also bracing for Saturday. Schools in Maastricht and Eindhoven have written to parents about the messages circulating online, warning that young people who go “just to watch” could easily get caught up if things escalate, RTL Nieuws reports. The municipality of Maastricht said it was taking the reports seriously, but that the risk was hard to predict.

The calls follow weeks of protests across Europe. In France, school pupils and students took to the streets over the state of education, the cost of living and government policy. Some of those protests turned into riots, and more than 6.800 people had been arrested by early October, according to the French Ministry of Justice. 

Youth-led protests have since taken place in Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Albania.