Youth protests spread across Europe as cost of living and school cuts fuel unrest

Teachers, pupils and a national revolt in France

Teachers at the Antoine-de-Saint-Exupéry lycée in Créteil, south-east of Paris, went on strike in mid-September over staff cuts and a lack of funding, and pupils soon joined them. The action spread to Paris and then across the country. Interior minister Laurent Nuñez said at least 550,000 people took to the streets on Saturday, 17 October. Peaceful gatherings in several cities later turned violent, with shops looted, cars and bins set alight and the town hall in Limoges, built in 1883, destroyed. According to official data cited by media on 21 October, 1,800 people had been arrested and more than 500 police officers and firefighters injured. On Sunday, 18 October, President Emmanuel Macron said the violence had been carried out by French citizens, and French officials rejected any link between the unrest and immigration.

Belgium and Milan: austerity meets the street

Schools in Liège were blocked on 1 October, and unions marched in Brussels on 9 October. Protests in both cities on 12 and 17 October brought violent clashes between young people and police. Demonstrators are opposing a Belgian austerity package of about €10 billion, which includes a €500 million cut to the French-speaking education budget by 2029, higher university fees and the end of cheap bus tickets for young people. In Milan, an anti-war and anti-inflation march on Saturday, 17 October, turned into a confrontation, as masked protesters looted shops, threw paving stones at officers and burned barricades built from café tables.

Italy's response: troops and tougher penalties

Police in Milan detained 271 people over the weekend, and on Monday, 19 October, reported 32 arrests, 23 of them minors. Detentions also took place in Bologna, Turin and Bergamo. Giorgia Meloni's government is sending 500 soldiers to Milan ahead of protests planned for Saturday, 24 October, and plans harsher penalties for rioters, fines for parents whose children take part in vandalism and a new offence of using violence at demonstrations. Deputy prime minister and foreign minister Antonio Tajani said the government would respond firmly to attacks on the state. Young organisers calling themselves the '17 October' movement have vowed to protest every Saturday until the government falls.

Spain, Greece and Albania: housing, pay and corruption

In Madrid, a tent camp grew in the city centre as residents protested soaring housing costs. The Spanish movement began with the eviction of an 87-year-old woman from a flat she had lived in all her adult life, after an investment fund bought the building. A general strike across Spain and Portugal is planned for 11 November, and Spain is heading to snap legislative elections. In Athens, the teachers' federation called a 24-hour strike, saying nearly half of teachers earn no more than €1,000 a month and that their purchasing power has fallen by close to 60%. For students in Greece, study and housing costs absorb nearly 35% of household disposable income, against just under 20% on average in Europe. In Albania, young people protest study conditions, corruption and a luxury tourism project on a protected area, attributed to Jared Kushner, son-in-law of Donald Trump.

Energy costs, wages and expert views

The unrest is partly rooted in the war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which keep oil, gas and diesel prices rising. Euro-area inflation reached 3.8% year on year in September, while the ECB puts wage growth per head at only 2.7% on average. In 2022, households could draw on Covid-era savings and a tight jobs market, but in 2026 the labour market has loosened and pay no longer keeps pace with prices.

Alberto Alemanno, a professor of EU law at HEC Paris, described the protests as a warning.

This is the most powerful warning from Europe's angry youth today, in France and across the continent.

Right-wing and far-right voices have tied the violence in France and Italy to migration without evidence, a framing Alemanno calls misleading. Célia Belin, head of the Paris office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said these doubts are being reinforced in France right now.

Faced with the high discontent of young people in high school, the government has no answer for them.