November 18, 2025
EurActiv
By Natália Silenská
(EurActiv) — A wave of student-led protests across Slovakia – quickly dubbed the “Chalk Revolution” – has seen pavements nationwide covered with anti-government slogans. The movement is expected to peak on Monday, the anniversary of the student-led 1989 Velvet Revolution, which helped bring down communist rule in Czechoslovakia.
The movement began a week ago after Fico announced a last-minute visit to a high school in the eastern city of Poprad to deliver a lecture on geopolitics. The sudden appearance raised tensions, and a 19-year-old student known as “Muro” marked the occasion by chalking anti-Fico messages on the pavement.
The school principal called the police, and the student was taken in for questioning. Fico cancelled the lecture soon after, claiming the European Commission was preparing to launch infringement proceedings over Slovakia’s anti-LGBTI amendment – a suggestion the Commission’s spokesperson questioned the same day.
The incident triggered a wave of solidarity, with students across Slovakia recreating Muro’s chalk messages. A call for action – “The November Chalk Wave – Solidarity with Muro” – spread rapidly on social media.
Organisers expect the movement to peak on 17 November, the anniversary of the 1989 Velvet Revolution, which began with student demonstrations and grew into mass protests that helped bring down communist rule in Czechoslovakia
The symbolism is sharpened by Fico’s decision to abolish 17 November as a national holiday as part of the government’s consolidation package. Yet most universities – along with dozens of companies and organisations – are still giving people the day off, with commemorations and rallies planned across the country.
Representatives of Fico’s party, Smer-SD, insisted the student was simply a “victim” of pro-European opposition narratives – a claim he denied, saying he has no link to any political party.
Students walked out on Fico
The standoff escalated on Friday, 14 November, when Fico returned to Poprad to deliver his postponed lecture – and faced a room of students dressed mostly in black. Irritated, he asked: “Are you heading to a funeral?”
But the breaking point came when he criticised EU support for Ukraine, claiming that the bloc planned to provide €140 billion to continue the war. Students jingled their keys – a gesture drawn directly from the Velvet Revolution.
Fico snapped: “If you’re such heroes in your black T-shirts and so desperately for this war, then go. Go on, jingle like in November. Stand up and go. Go fight in Ukraine!”
About 30 students stood up and walked out, one holding a Ukrainian flag.
“It was very intense. It was unpleasant. He was arrogant,” Sarah, a student who witnessed the exchange, told Slovak media. Public support poured in, including from the Slovak Chamber of Teachers, which said it “repeatedly objects to the prime minister’s aggressive and demeaning remarks about young people who care about the state of their country.”
“When they had the opportunity to discuss, they left”, Fico wrote on social media after the walkout, welcoming the fact that some students nevertheless came back later to discuss the issue with him.
For Fico, the episode capped a bruising week – from revelations linking his adviser Miroslav Lajčák to Jeffrey Epstein to the dismissal of Deputy PM Peter Kmec over a subsidies scandal.
Contacted by Euractiv, the Slovak authorities haven’t commented by the time of publication.
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