Analysis: Europe — 28 October 2026
Student List wins Serbian majority as Vučić concedes
Aleksandar Vučić conceded Serbia’s parliamentary election after independent pollster CRTA put the Student List (SL) on 52.45 percent and his United Serbia list on 39.2 percent. Turnout was just under 70 percent, the highest in decades. The result stands out because SL is not a conventional party: all 250 candidates were chosen through student plenums, and none were professional politicians. Before polls closed, riot police massed near the electoral commission and black-clad groups gathered in central Belgrade. Vučić’s early concession, UnHerd reports, surprised a country that had expected him to cling on.
The movement grew from two years of protest after a train-station canopy collapsed in Novi Sad on 1 November 2024, killing 16 people. Students blamed corrupt contracts; “corruption kills” became the slogan. Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party had dominated for 14 years. He waited for protests to fade, forced a prime minister out, and, UnHerd says, saw police and SNS-linked thugs beat demonstrators; a “sonic weapon” was allegedly used. Students blockaded universities, cycled toward EU institutions, and held 16-minute silent vigils. They kept the old opposition out and refused a single leader, making smear campaigns harder.
The tension is whether a leaderless, ideologically mixed majority can govern. SL includes nationalists, liberals and leftists and says it wants to dismantle the SNS system, then allow fair competition rather than become another personalist party. Foreign policy may shift least: an SL figure pledged continuity with Russia and no sanctions, while the EU remains the main trading partner without an immediate membership drive. Brussels long treated Vučić as the indispensable interlocutor. Whether SL can reform unreformed security structures without splitting is untested.
Sources: UnHerd.
French consumer confidence falls to lowest since 2013
French household confidence fell to 80 in October, against 85 expected, InvestingLive reported, with the previous 86 revised to 85. That is the weakest reading since 2013 and well below the long-term average of 100, last seen in December 2021. Sub-indices for past and expected finances and living standards deteriorated. The future-prices gauge rose to -7, its highest since May. Unemployment fears climbed five points to 61, the highest since March 2021. The report ties the drop to fiscal anxiety, public-finance worries, social unrest and already disappointing French PMI figures.
France is the eurozone’s second-largest economy. Bond markets have been watching French debt, and European gas prices have been reported at four-year highs, adding pressure on households. InvestingLive argues the data add to the ECB’s problem of slower growth in France while price pressures look set to intensify. Consumption is the transmission channel: if households pull back, tax receipts weaken just as Paris needs fiscal credibility.
The contradiction is that political disorder and fiscal stress now reinforce each other. Weak confidence makes deficit repair harder; fiscal deadlock feeds the gloom. Whether October is a one-month shock from unrest or a deeper trap for the eurozone’s core is unresolved. Rate policy cannot fix a confidence collapse rooted in public finances and street-level instability.
Sources: InvestingLive.