Credit, Reuters
From Milan to Marseille, passing through Madrid and many other European cities, the streets have been taken over by colorful and intense protests in recent weeks.
This Saturday alone (10/31), more than 300,000 people took to the streets across France, and at least 290 protesters were arrested, according to the country's Ministry of the Interior. In Germany, protests ended in clashes and looting in cities such as Frankfurt, Berlin, Cologne and Hamburg. Police used water cannons to disperse protesters.
While most of this month's protests began peacefully, many ended in shocking scenes of violence and looting. There are accusations that radical left groups have intentionally provoked riots, in addition to reports of excessive use of force by the police.
The continent is experiencing a climate of social and political instability.
Thousands participated in demonstrations in Rome and Florence, Italy. n Madrid, Spain, a tent camp has occupied a square in the city center since the end of September. In Lisbon, the Portuguese capital, tens of thousands of people, most of them young people, took part in a march earlier this month. In Brussels, the Belgian capital, police used tear gas and water cannons against protesters after young people dressed in black, with their faces covered to hide their identities, threw stones and firecrackers at the police. In Albania, protesters denouncing corruption in the government demand the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama, who has been in power for 13 years.
I spent years covering demonstrations across Europe, both peaceful and violent. I remember well the fervent demonstrations for the independence of Catalonia (Spanish region) in 2017; of despair and Molotov cocktails thrown through the streets of Athens, the Greek capital, during the Greek debt crisis in 2015; and the various episodes of violence in France during President Emmanuel Macron's first term, provoked by proposals to increase taxes on fuel and pension reform.
Credit, REUTERS/Abdul Saboor
But this time it feels different. Protests erupt simultaneously across Europe, and the majority of protesters, both peaceful and violent, are young. Some are very young. Among those detained, the number of minors stands out. More than half of those arrested in clashes in Barcelona last weekend were under 18 years old. In Milan, minors were also among those detained by police after clashes, according to Italian news agency LaPresse.
In general, European governments have sought to distinguish those responsible for looting and riots from participants in noisy but peaceful and legally organized demonstrations. The latter tend to focus on specific claims. In the current wave of protests, posters and slogans mainly express dissatisfaction with education, social inequalities and the rising cost of living, although each country also has its own demands.
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But what caused this wave of indignation among young Europeans, apparently so suddenly? Is there any connection between these manifestations? And, with important elections approaching in Europe, how will governments decide to react? Will they listen to the protesters' demands or rely on a law and order discourse to win the support of older voters?
'TikTokization' of protests
Students took to the streets in France, Belgium, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Serbia and Albania, in an area that stretches more than 1,600 km across the European continent.
Demonstrations are often organized in an improvised manner, through social networks such as TikTok or Instagram. Belgium's Interior Minister criticized what he called the "Tiktokization" of the protests.
Student unions participate in organizing the demonstrations, but young people are also inspired by the actions of students from other countries and even other continents.
This is the case of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) in India, a social and political protest movement of generation Z (born between 1995 and 2010) that emerged in May this year, initially criticizing the Indian educational system.
France, where the current wave of student protests began at the end of September, driven by complaints about the lack of staff and the precariousness of school buildings, has become one of the main sources of inspiration for the demonstrations in Europe. There is a saying in neighboring Belgium that when it rains heavily in Paris, it at least drizzles in Brussels. The Belgian capital and the city of Liège have also seen youth protests for weeks.
Credit, EPA/Shutterstock
In Barcelona, students were encouraged to participate in the demonstrations last weekend using the hashtag #InstitutsIndignats on social media, in reference to the French motto Lycées Indignés (Indigned High School Students, in free translation).
In Athens, 17-year-old Greek student Yiannis Papanikolaou told the AFP news agency: "The school buildings are in terrible condition and poorly maintained... I think something can change because of what France is doing. France will boost Greece."
Economic stagnation and concern about the cost of living
Across Europe, many young people are feeling the effects of economic stagnation, and their concerns go far beyond education. They care about the environment and fear that artificial intelligence (AI) will reduce their employment opportunities. They also fear that the rapidly rising cost of living will prevent them from completing their studies and buying or renting a house large enough to raise a family.
In Madrid and Lisbon, dissatisfaction is focused on exorbitant property prices. In Portugal, campaigns published on Instagram stated that "enough is enough" and called on the population to take to the streets, following the example of protesters in Spain.
In Lisbon, Carolina Cruz, 26, a PhD student and researcher in biology, said she is at risk of losing her home because her rental contract is nearing the end. "I'm the first person in my family to enter a doctoral program and, even with everything I studied, I still can't support myself," he told Reuters news agency.
The indignation is shared by Riccardo, 22, who is taking part in the protests in Milan, Italy's financial center. "Even if we don't manage to plunge the country into chaos, like in France, or block all the roads, like in Spain, the objective is to at least get people to discuss these problems again," he told AFP.
But dissatisfaction is not limited to young leftists. At the launch of French nationalist Marine Le Pen's presidential campaign last weekend, young supporters told the BBC of different concerns. They define themselves as the "silent majority" — who have not (yet) taken to the streets to protest — and say they are deeply concerned about "uncontrolled immigration" and safety on the streets of France, in addition to the cost of living.
Simultaneous crises
The wave of dissatisfaction spread beyond young people to include unions, members of the heterogeneous Yellow Vests (gilets jaunes, in French) movement, which protested the rising cost of living during Macron's first term, and other civil society initiatives. Last weekend, the county of Kent, on the south coast of England, recorded two demonstrations: one for and one against immigration.
This mix of protests with different demands may seem confusing.
Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, states that Europe faces an accumulation of successive and simultaneous crises, which compete with each other and which, according to him, have never been properly resolved. Now, this pent-up dissatisfaction is beginning to spill out onto the streets.
Credit, REUTERS/Valdrin Xhemaj
"One crisis overlaps another," Leonard told the BBC. "The financial crisis of 2007 and 2008, the migration crisis of 2015, the environmental crisis, the covid-19 pandemic, inflation after Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and now, once again, with the war in the Gulf."
According to Leonard, these crises gave rise to different groups, which he calls "tribes". The consumption of content on social networks and algorithms reinforce the different views of these groups, increasing the feeling of polarization in Europe.
"We've seen this in the United States," Leonard said. "It's the feeling that 'my crisis is more important than yours'."
Nathalie Tocci, a former advisor to the Italian government and current professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University in the USA, said that we should not be so surprised by the protests or the participation of young people.
"We tend to think that young people are disinterested and unaware of politics. We think that they don't even bother to vote, for example, but, in fact, they are very engaged," Tocci told the BBC. "But they participate in a different way, more linked to popular mobilization. Just remember "Fridays for Future", an environmental movement that spread across Europe a few years ago, or the demonstrations against Israel's actions in Gaza after October 7th."
Tocci cites the student-led protest movement in Serbia, which recently defeated longtime leader Aleksandar Vučić in parliamentary elections. "It's impressive. They continued to mobilize for more than two years. But how long will these new demonstrations on the streets of Europe be able to maintain momentum? That's not yet clear."
Credit, REUTERS/Yves Herman
What about the looting and violence?
The intelligence services of France and Belgium claim that the looting that occurred during authorized demonstrations is, for the most part, opportunistic.
According to these services, the riots are the result of a combination of "gratuitous violence" — an expression also used by Spanish authorities to describe the clashes that took place in Barcelona last weekend — and acts of vandalism deliberately organized by young people from ultra-radical left-wing groups.
Tocci recalled that, in Italy, some Italians outraged by seemingly unreasonable acts of destruction use the term "maranza" to refer to those responsible for actions such as breaking or burning cars and public trash cans, for example.
In France, those responsible for riots are often called "casseurs", a term used to describe people who destroy things. But, in private conversations, some resort to an expression with a stronger political connotation: racaille (rabble, in free translation). Just like maranza in Italy, it is a derogatory slang, generally used to refer to urban young people who are marginalized and involved in trouble, often of working-class or immigrant origin. The term was used in October 2005 by the then French Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, to describe young offenders involved in riots during a visit marked by tensions to housing projects in Argenteuil, on the outskirts of Paris.
The French press also questioned whether there is an alliance of convenience, albeit informal or circumstantial, between two groups of young people: radical left activists and residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods in France. Just like members of the anti-capitalist left, young people who live in public housing complexes on the outskirts of French cities, known as banlieues (suburbs, in free translation), often feel discriminated against and denounce the excessive use of force by the police.
France's political right and center, including President Emmanuel Macron, blame radical left-wing and "delinquent" groups for planning the riots. Unlike Marine Le Pen's National Rally party, they did not establish a relationship between violence and immigration, whether past or current, to France.
Critics accuse parties opposed to immigration in Europe of trying to politically exploit the unrest. In Belgium, the anti-immigration Flemish nationalist opposition party Vlaams Belang appeared to hold immigrants responsible for the violence in Liège and Brussels. The party classified the riots as "imported" and attributed the episodes to the lack of integration of immigrants and the open borders policy. Belgian Interior Minister Bernard Quentin blamed groups on the radical left.
A movement that is here to stay?
New large demonstrations are planned for the coming days in France and Italy.
Governments try to contain violence. Thousands of people were detained, and Italy and France promised to adopt a "break, pay" policy for those responsible for the riots.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is also holding parents responsible for damages caused by minor children, including discounts on social benefits received by the family. In France, the Civil Code already provides that parents who live with their children are held responsible for the damage caused by them.
But some of these European governments may not stay in power for long. All major European Union countries have held or will hold important elections in the coming months. The French presidential election is considered the most decisive for Europe. Marine Le Pen systematically appears far ahead of her opponents in voting intention polls. The assessment is that the riots on the French streets are benefiting politics, thanks to his party's defense of law and order.
In Spain, Italy, Germany and Poland, nationalist parties that advocate strict immigration policies also perform well in the polls. These captions promise to restore order and national pride. Leonard believes that populist parties or parties outside mainstream politics, both left and right, have become "crisis entrepreneurs", exploiting instability in Europe to attract disaffected voters.
Meanwhile, traditional European parties face a leadership crisis, according to Grégoire Roos, director for Europe at the think tank (research and debate center) Chatham House.
I would argue that they also face a crisis of legitimacy. The fact that so many people, young and not so young, are on the streets protesting indicates that these parties have failed to deal with the problems.
But it is not at all clear that new elections will be able to end the population's dissatisfaction. France, for example, is so polarized that, if Le Pen became president, many predict that her opponents would take to the country's streets in protest.
Modern Europe is based on the principle that citizens pay taxes and obey the laws. In return, they receive quality public services, such as education and health, as well as security and a stable society, governed by laws and regulations.
But that "social contract" is clearly weakened, says Chatham House's Roos.
Given the wave of dissatisfaction taking over the streets of Europe, everything indicates that the protests will continue.
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