Analysis: Europe — 10 October 2026
Labour retains Starmer’s old seat as Zack Polanski loses Holborn by-election
Labour’s Sagal Abdi-Wali won the Holborn and St Pancras by-election with 12,292 votes to Green leader Zack Polanski’s 8,928, taking 45% against 33% and holding Keir Starmer’s former seat after his resignation as an MP. Turnout fell 15.4 percentage points from 2024. The result stands out because the Greens had framed the contest as a historic upset: Polanski led the campaign in person, the Green share rose 22.4 points, and a conference motion declaring Zionism a form of racism landed days before polling.
In 2024 the Greens won 10% in the seat; independent Andrew Feinstein, running against austerity and on Gaza, won 19%. UnHerd notes Polanski finished only 3.5 points above that combined share. Spiked reports he released videos in Urdu and Bengali, distributed Somali leaflets, and sought backing from the Camden Muslim Alliance and the Muslim Vote. Four of the Greens’ five MPs opposed the Zionism motion. YouGov put Green net favourability at -23 by July, down from +5 before Polanski’s leadership; Opinium puts his net approval at -22, against +8 for Prime Minister Andy Burnham. George Galloway’s Workers Party took 1.1%.
Fact and analysis diverge on what the numbers mean. By-elections often punish governments; here Labour held a safe seat while the Green surge after Gorton and Denton failed to transfer. Burnham’s modest poll recovery appears to have reclaimed anti-Starmer protest voters rather than converting committed Greens. Open questions are whether that recovery lasts, whether an early general election follows, and whether a post-Polanski Green Party doubles down on the same pitch that did not win Holborn.
Sources: UnHerd, Spiked.
French student protests spread as CAC 40 ends the week lower on fiscal risk
French high-school protests produced a rally of more than 250,000 this week, with more than 500 schools shut. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu pledged reform proposals this month after a student’s hand was blown off by a police stun grenade. InvestingLive cites an Interior Ministry figure of 71,500 on Thursday; the main Paris march was mostly peaceful, while unrest elsewhere included arson, vandalism and attacks on teachers. European stocks rose on Friday—Germany’s DAX +1.13%, France’s CAC 40 +0.95% to 7,803.34—but most indices still finished the week down. The CAC lost 1.19% and Italy’s FTSE MIB 1.46%; the UK FTSE 100 gained 0.86%. Traders flagged French fiscal risk and higher borrowing costs as the continuing European drag. EUR/USD was flat at 1.1207.
The movement began as a complaint about teacher shortages, crowded classrooms and decaying buildings. It is no longer only French. Belgian students clashed this week; Greek pupils organised nationwide actions; occupations started in Turin and Rome; Irish and Austrian students are mobilising over fees and funding cuts. Presidential candidates have already moved in: Jean-Luc Mélenchon amplifying student grievances, Marine Le Pen accusing his party of fomenting “riots,” former prime minister Gabriel Attal on the defensive in a debate with school pupils.
UnHerd, drawing on Eurointelligence, treats the unrest as potentially more than a school-conditions dispute: stretched post-Covid, energy-shock and defence budgets leave little room to buy peace, while an ageing electorate privileges pensions over the young. Markets price the same events as sovereign risk, not pedagogy. The tension is unresolved: Lecornu must offer reforms without widening a deficit that already cheapens French assets, and an approaching presidential contest raises the cost of both concession and force.
Sources: UnHerd, InvestingLive.