Youth protests spreading from France reflect fears over education, costs and defence: Analysis

All right, joining us now from Munich is Alberto Alemano. He's the Jean Manet Professor of European Union Law and Policy at HEC Paris. Goodness, Alberto, thank you very much for your time. Albania, Portugal, France, not even on the list there is protests in Spain as well. Has something been the catalyst for the sudden eruption we've seen in public demonstrations? Well, France is the epicentre of this movement. What began in September has become basically a national-wide movement And there are signs now suggesting that this is spreading beyond France and reaching other European countries. I think the clearest examples so far have been Portugal, as you have mentioned, but also Belgium, where there have been clashes and well over hundreds arrested in Liege. In Italy, where I spent the last few days, students have begun occupying schools under the slogan, let's do as in France. And in Greece, students are also calling for walkouts and they are mobilizing. In Germany, in Austria, we also see the early stage of a movement with mobilisation expected in the coming week. I would say this is not a single movement. It's more about separate protests happening at the same time with some shared grievances. So there are common dots, I think, that can be connected in this space. And what are those dots that you would connect? Well, I would say clearly what you hear from the students' mobilisation is denunciation of underfunded education, rising costs. an uncertain prospect after graduation. They also share tactics, the blockades, the occupations, they use the internet in a way that is very conducive to quick and agile movements, and this is clearly creating a lot more, I would say, impact for society as large. I think there is also a generational claim that goes beyond this policy demand. I think we clearly sense that most of these individuals Today, these youth movements feel that there's less attention being paid to their future and also a feeling that in the new geopolitical circumstances, a lot of investment that are currently happening in Europe on defense might actually curtail the welfare state spending, as the education chapter already suggests. When you combine all these trends, including AI and the impact that AI might have on this generation, If you think about the major pushback the AI is receiving in the United States, this is also, I think, in the background of what might be happening in Europe in the coming weeks. By extension of all of this, we are seeing already partisan, polarising politics enter the fray. If we look at France in particular, the left aligning with joining the protests, the right aligning with the efforts by police to quell the protests. How does that complicate protest movements, not just in France necessarily, but elsewhere across Europe, those other protests you've also mentioned. It's obvious that these movements are being politicised as we speak, as they always are. In France, the government accuses the hard left, France Unbowed, of fuelling the protests, while its leaders back them and call for non-violence. And the heavy police response, virtually everywhere in Europe, with thousands of hundreds of detentions, depending on the country, most of them minors, has itself become a source of anger. So this is further fuelling this sentiment of not being understood and making the violence even more significant than what they should be or what they could be. Albania, I think, is a bit of an outlier. The youth movement there is building upon an anti-government protest that already pre-existed. So it's much broader, it's much more cross-generational than what we are seeing happening across other capitals and peripheries of Europe today. Yeah, you wrote a piece recently pointing out there are a number of countries facing elections in the next 12 months, Spain and France among them. What do governments do between now and then? Well, Europe is about to enter into a super cycle of national elections, which is unprecedented in the recent history of European integration. We're going to have the Spanish elections in a couple of weeks, and then we're going to see the largest, biggest country in Europe. We're going to see France, we're going to see Spain, also Italy and Poland having elections. And inevitably, all these protests, all these mobilizations are going to be at the center of the political conversation. And Spain will be the test case because the way in which this is developing, how this protest has been narrated also by the media seems to suggest that supporting the current government, which is progressive, one of the few remaining in Europe, is about supporting the poor, whereas voting against it is about supporting the wealthy. So it's pretty clear the issue of affordability, the socioeconomic issue is really at the center of this protest. And it will be the defining issue that will determine which will be the political future, the political balance of the European Union in 2027. And in one year time, certainly the union is going to look very different than what has been in the past few decades. Very interesting. Alberto Allemandi joining us from Munich. Thank you very much for your time.