A generation takes to the streets: Young Europeans refuse to accept a future stacked against them

Tens of thousands of young people have taken to the streets in France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Albania. In doing so, they have joined what has been dubbed the Generation Z revolution (those born between 1997 and 2012), which over the past two years helped bring down the government of Bangladesh, force the resignation of Nepal’s prime minister and dissolve Madagascar’s government. Now, in Europe, on the eve of an electoral supercycle that will determine the governments of four of the European Union’s five most populous countries (France, Italy, Spain and Poland), young people are sharing a frustration that opportunities for their generation are becoming scarcer and their future increasingly insecure.

France has drawn the most media attention. The protests have now lasted more than a month and have brought as many as 266,000 people onto the streets in a single day. They were initially led by high school students. Last Saturday, they were joined by the Yellow Vests, the anti-establishment protest movement that emerged in 2018, as well as trade unions, farmers, transport workers and public-sector employees. The protests began over mounting concerns about the state of public education, with demonstrators demanding more funding for teachers, smaller class sizes and better school facilities.

These demands come as governments face growing strain on public finances. Across the EU, public debt stands at 82.9% of GDP, with France among the bloc’s most heavily indebted countries at 117.6%.

The French movement has inspired students in Belgium and Italy. “Facciamo come in Francia” (“Let’s do as they do in France”), protesters chant in southern Europe. “Money for schools, not for war,” demonstrators shout in the streets of Rome, Milan and Turin, among other cities. In Belgium, the protests have been driven by cuts to French-speaking education and a planned increase in university tuition fees. The government of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation has approved nearly €500 million ($561 million) in spending cuts across several sectors, including education.

Lenaïk Dumont, president of Belgium’s Federation of Francophone Students of Belgium (FEF), says by email that this year’s protests were triggered by reforms to the Paysage decree, which requires students to complete a certain number of credits within a set timeframe in order to keep receiving public financial support.

“We are already living in a climate of precarity, where many of us have to work while studying and even help support our families financially. And this reform forces university students to complete their degrees as quickly as possible in order to keep receiving public support, even if their financial situation is precarious,” Dumont says. “Access to university should not depend on your ability to take on debt; education is a right, not a privilege.”

In Portugal, as in Spain, thousands of young people have taken to the streets to protest soaring housing costs. Early on Sunday, hundreds defied eviction orders and spent the night camping in central Lisbon and Porto to demand affordable housing, according to the Spanish news agency EFE. Demonstrators pitched dozens of tents in Rossio Square, one of Lisbon’s most emblematic public spaces, and in Porto’s Dom João I Square, the site of a police eviction earlier last week that left around 40 people injured, according to organizers. The encampments followed demonstrations held on Saturday in several Portuguese cities against rising housing costs and the broader cost-of-living crisis.

Riots in Milan

In Italy, Saturday night descended into serious unrest in several cities, particularly Milan, echoing scenes seen in France. Earlier in the day, peaceful demonstrations had taken place over education and the rising cost of living, including a rally of 100,000 people in Rome organized by Italy’s main trade union, the CGIL, which has called a general strike for November 20.

By late evening, however, violent groups, in some cases involving very young participants and minors, clashed with police. Milan’s mayor, Giuseppe Sala, said he had not seen anything comparable in a decade and warned that the police presence had been inadequate. Similar disturbances were reported again on Sunday, leading to 160 arrests, many of them minors.

The protests later gave way to violence, particularly in Milan, Turin, Bologna, Brescia and Bergamo. At least 141 police officers were injured. The incidents that caused the greatest alarm were attacks on and looting of shops. In Milan, businesses around Piazza del Duomo and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele were targeted. In Turin, the large Feltrinelli bookstore at Porta Nuova station was ransacked.

As often happens in Italy, the unrest quickly sparked a political row. Although all parties condemned the violence, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni accused the left of attempting to justify it. However, amid this unusual outburst of anger, much of the media has noted that those involved in the violence appeared to have no identifiable political affiliation.

Donatella della Porta, an Italian sociologist and political scientist who specializes in social movements, explains by email: “Generation Z has grown up through multiple crises — austerity, climate change, the pandemic and now wars — and has been politically shaped by protests in solidarity with Palestine and against Israel’s genocide [in Gaza]. In Italy, we call them the ‘Gaza Generation.’”

This pro-Palestinian sentiment has also taken root in the Netherlands, where university students occupied and blockaded campuses in Amsterdam and Utrecht in May 2024, demanding that their institutions sever ties with Israeli universities. The focus of the protests has since expanded to include university budget cuts and military rearmament.

Evy Kras, president of the Dutch National Student Union, says her organization has spent more than a decade campaigning against the student loan system introduced in 2015, which replaced grants with debt-financed support. “Some people will still be paying off their loans well into their forties,” she says. Basic grants were reinstated in 2023, but many students who studied under the previous system continue to carry substantial debt.

Opposition to militarization has also become a central cause. The union took part in the Stop de Oorlogskoorts (“Stop the War Fever”) movement, which organized a demonstration in Amsterdam on September 27, and is preparing student strikes and walkouts for November 20. “We have had little contact with organizations in other countries, but in the end none of us wants to fight in a war or be conscripted through mandatory military service,” Kras explains.

Meanwhile, it is in eastern Europe that the protests have made their strongest impact. In Serbia, nearly two years of continuous demonstrations following the collapse of the concrete canopy at Novi Sad railway station, which killed 16 people, have culminated in the calling of early elections. In Albania, more than four months of initially peaceful protests against tourism developments, including one backed by Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, converged last week with a student uprising that has caused extensive damage to public buildings, including the Supreme Court and the Ministry of Education, parts of which were set on fire.

Political disillusionment

Although Europe is not experiencing an economic crisis on the scale of 2008, young people’s prospects are still constrained by insecurity and precariousness. In August, unemployment among under-25s stood at 15.4% across the European Union, compared with 6.1% for the population as a whole. In 2025, 24.2% of Europeans aged 15 to 29 were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, compared with 20.9% of the overall population.

One factor highlighted by experts is demographic imbalance. Tim Vlandas, a political scientist at the University of Oxford, coined the term “gerontonomics” to describe an economy in which the growing electoral weight of older voters — who accounted for 22% of Europe’s population in 2025, up from 17% in 2005 and now outnumber those under 20 — creates incentives for policies that prioritize consumption and pensions over social investment and future growth.

Age divides are increasingly reflected at the ballot box. In Spain, 51% of voters over 65 support either the conservative Popular Party (PP) or the governing Socialist Party (PSOE), according to a June 2026 poll by 40dB. By contrast, younger voters have gravitated toward the far-right Vox party, which is tied with the PP among voters under 25.

In France, which is due to hold presidential elections in April 2027, polls show that 77% of young voters back either the far-right National Rally or the populist left-wing La France Insoumise, while just 23% support the rest of the political spectrum.

In Italy, ahead of next year’s general election, nearly half of voters aged 18 to 34 favor the opposition left-wing bloc, compared with less than 30% who support Giorgia Meloni’s governing coalition, according to YouTrend surveys.

This political radicalization is accompanied by deep disillusionment with mainstream politics. In France, 74% of voters under 30 say the political class neither represents nor listens to them. Comparable figures stand at 69% in Italy and 59% in Spain, according to national surveys in each country.

Belgian student leader Lenaïk Dumont rejects the notion that young people are apathetic. “Young people are not apathetic, and we are not uninterested in politics. We are angry, and we are not going to sit back and do nothing,” she says. She also stresses that these protests are not new: students across Europe have been mobilizing for more than a year. The European Students’ Union (ESU), which represents student organizations across the continent, recorded 54 protest actions in 22 countries between March and May this year, up from 31 actions in 13 countries during the previous reporting period.

One banner carried by Italian students on Friday summed up the mood: “If you take away our future, we will block your present.” What remains to be seen is how that threat will translate into votes at the ballot box.

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