Student Protests Mushroom Across Europe, Exposing Bleak Views of the Future
Since high school students began protesting in France in September, they’ve been joined by young demonstrators in at least seven other European countries.
Reporting from Madrid
Young Spaniards and Portuguese have pitched tents in their countries’ capitals to protest high rents. French and Italian students have marched en masse for better school conditions in demonstrations marred by looters.
Greeks protested for more university funding and young Albanians clashed with the police after joining broad anti-corruption demonstrations against a government they accused of impeding their prospects.
These are among the young Europeans who have taken to the streets in recent days in at least eight countries across the continent. Their demands vary according to the context and the government, but a common thread unites them all: They fear for their future.
“The no-future generation is back,” Sacha Cossi, 27, a concert stagehand, said on Tuesday as he sat with a group of other young Spaniards under a low tarp in the tent encampment in central Madrid.
Mr. Cossi said the tent city, there for weeks, reflected a continent-wide exasperation over low salaries and high rents, an impotence in the face of global warming and a general anxiety about job prospects and the potential disappearance of the generous welfare benefits enjoyed by previous generations.
“We are tired of everything,” he said, adding: “Things keep changing in a way that doesn’t benefit us.”
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