http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C5%9Fescu
And I do not doubt that if some European politician got it in to their heads to try something really stupid that such 'reminder' demonstrations would turn violent pretty quickly.
In France it wasn't 5 years ago that 100's of cars were burned every night and in the Netherlands squatters do battle with the riot police with some regularity.
Mob violence is never far away.
If you can do better than that be my guest, but I definitely see them as motivated by politics, even if not directly attacking a specific policy or having a concrete goal. It's more an act of frustration with life set off by the friction between police and these youths, specifically one incidence was the spark that set off the powder.
A successful mob revolution requires a huge mob that can spill over government opposition. Such a huge mob can be prevented in 2 main ways - $ and Fear:
1. The Chinese and Singaporean approach: The fascist state with a booming economy. Fear of punishment and desire to make money keeps the mob small.
2. The North Korean approach: Have such a huge military that the rest of the country can not overrun it ever. The downside is no state can support that kind of military and you get starvation.
Iran etc. are a mix of 1 & 2 with less prosperity then Singapore but more sate violence and spying then China.
I have absolutely no faith that a violent revolution can happen anywhere in today's Europe. We're too old and too rich.
Such a huge mob can be prevented in 2 main ways - $ and Fear
The North Korean approach: Have such a huge military that
the rest of the country can not overrun it ever.
In Romania I still think it was a coup d'état, as the army switched sides quite early; but the mob was there, it was furious ... and it emerged out of nowhere. And it was interesting because romanians really aren't violent people.
Governments should learn to not piss off citizens: people can take a lot of pain before acting, but there's always a tipping point and from there onward it turns into a civil war between millions of people and a couple of thousand with guns (but that's a short-lived tactical advantage).
I've lived 'east' of Berlin for a while and still spend quite a bit of time there and in Romania and this particular sentiment strikes me every time I'm there. In the big cities the differences are large but outside not nearly as much if at all. Poverty is still quite present and the fat cats have found ways of getting fatter.
At least it's gotten easier for people to get around, provided they have the means of doing so.
The anarchist groups active today are a little less troubling than groups like the Red Army Faction, Red Brigades and the Irish Republican Army that were a feature of the 1970's and 1980's.
The real danger of mob rule might come from unscrupulous politicians making capital from social tensions. The recent series of expulsions of Romany from France and Italy were certainly a very troubling reminder of Europe's recent history.