The red squares have returned, but this time time the target isn't tuition fees.

Montreal students held a downtown protest on Monday to kick off nearly two weeks of planned strikes and demonstrations against what they describe as the province's heavy-handed austerity measures.

Organizers want the province to undo spending cuts and put a moratorium on all fossil fuel development.

"We don't want this to be just a student movement," Charlotte Gilbert, a member of the UQÀM social science faculty student association, said recently.

"We are calling on this to be a social movement that brings together militants from local unions, students, and collectives and community groups from across Quebec."

They hope the latest wave of demonstrations will be even larger than the ones held during the so-called Maple Spring of 2012.