Children are not okay. Across Europe, young people are protesting on issues ranging from lack of education funding to housing costs, posing major challenges to governments already under pressure and providing a visible sign of the generational frustrations Gen Z feels.
The exact composition of these complaints varies by country. In Spain, this wave of protests was sparked by the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal from her home. In France, students demonstrated in support of the teachers’ strike. Student protests have been shaking Albania intermittently for months, sparked by a luxury development project backed by US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
But despite their different origins, all these movements have functioned as a kind of black hole, drawing in all sorts of grievances and then exploding them all at once for a generation of young people who fear they won’t have the same opportunities as their parents. They have partly inspired each other. Protesters in Italy and Greece have cited French protesters in their slogans. Spain’s housing protests have also spread to Portugal. Alice de Brito, vice president of UNEF, France’s main student union, told CNN that student unions across Europe are sharing advice and experiences with each other.
“I think there are more similarities than differences,” she said. “We’re all talking about the need to invest in education, college, and youth in general. But we’re also talking about living costs and housing.”
This echoes the demands of Italian student union leader Sabrina Brizzola, who spoke at a rally last weekend. “Let’s make our voices heard for schools that don’t collapse, for safe and dignified jobs, for public health care, and for social justice.”
For Julius Fintelmann, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the European Correspondents’ daily newsletter, the protests “reflect a certain frustration, a feeling that European politics is failing to reach the next generation.”
In addition to education and housing, he points to the climate crisis as laying the groundwork for an increasingly uncertain job market, with artificial intelligence having a disproportionate impact on entry-level jobs, and an outburst of Gen Z anger. “I think fundamentally what we’re seeing is this promise that liberal democracies had, that the next generation would enjoy a better life than this one, and that promise is no longer true,” he told CNN.
And the European Union countries most affected by the protests (Greece, Italy, France, Belgium, Spain and Portugal) share a bleak economic background and high levels of national debt, making it difficult to increase public spending. French bond yields, for example, rose to their highest levels since 2002 on Wednesday, further increasing pressure on the government’s budget.
De Brito pointed out that for the past nine years, such student protests have taken place in September and October of each school year in France, as young people returning to education realize they do not have enough teachers or adequate equipment.
But this year, those demands snowballed as students demanded smaller class sizes, more spending on teachers, investment in infrastructure to withstand the climate crisis and an end to police violence against young people. “People are tired of waiting for answers,” de Brito said.
Education is a topic that transcends Europe’s borders. Reuters reported that thousands of students and teachers marched across Greece, including a group that gathered outside parliament in Athens shouting: “From Greece to France, we want free public education.” When students first occupied a high school in Rome on October 7, they wrote “Just like in France” in the first line of a statement defending their actions.
The Italian government has sought to downplay any similarities to the French protests. “The situation in Italy is very different from France,” Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara said earlier this month, repeating far-right claims that France’s protests are fueled by the difficulties of integrating second-generation immigrants into the school system, which Italy does not have.
However, the housing issue is also a cross-border issue. Italian protesters said they had been closely following the housing protests in Spain that erupted in earnest in September and ultimately forced the government to hold snap elections.
Students at a protest camp in Rome told CNN that affordable housing is inseparable from a good education. One of them, Elisa Pastore, said she could “barely” pay the rent for a shared room in the Italian capital where she and her brother attend university. During the first half of his degree, before his brother had even started university, he had to commute 120 kilometers (75 miles) from outside Rome to save money.
Other groups are also holding protests. Production of buffalo mozzarella cheese and some pasta has been halted due to a blockade by Italian truck drivers angry about soaring fuel prices after the Iran war. And issues such as housing cross generational divides, with older generations being drawn into the protests.
In Portugal, thousands of people gathered in Rossio Square, one of Lisbon’s busiest squares, every night this week. Some people set up tents, and by early Tuesday morning, 55 people had been arrested and the demonstrations had grown further. Demonstrators waved flags with slogans such as “casas para morale,” meaning “houses to live in,” and demanded the repeal of new laws that cap rent increases and make evictions easier.
Elsewhere, long-running demonstrations in Albania and Serbia have focused on anti-corruption and evolved into movements aimed at overthrowing national governments.
After protests in Albania turned violent last week, Prime Minister Edi Rama resisted any calls to resign, instead threatening the country’s EU membership plans and blaming demonstrators for the unrest on his political opponents.
“We want change. That’s why we’re here,” one Albanian demonstrator told Reuters. “We want a revolution. We want a new government. We don’t want any negotiations. We need a new government as soon as possible.”
Meanwhile, in Serbia, the student-led protests that have shaped the country’s politics for the past two years form the most formidable challenge to longtime leader Aleksandar Vucic in Sunday’s parliamentary elections.
Another wave of protests spread across France on Saturday, with tens of thousands of demonstrators marching in cities including Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Orleans and Bordeaux. The march in Paris, organized by France’s main student union UNEF, also included the CGT, one of the country’s largest trade unions, farmers, climate change activists and the yellow vests, a movement that first emerged during protests over fuel costs in 2018. Authorities had spent much of the week trying to prevent public disorder like the one seen last weekend.
The main trade unions in France and Spain have called for a general strike on November 5th and 11th, respectively. In Germany, a group calling itself “Gen Z regelt” (“Gen Z Got It”) called for nationwide protests on October 31st. Student unions in the UK and Italy are also planning actions on November 20 to protest against rising education costs.
