Riot police dragged protesters out of Rossio, an iconic square in downtown Lisbon, overnight into Sunday, tearing down the tents where a few hundred people had camped out to demand affordable housing. A few were detained. That's how the Portuguese state answered a weeks-long protest over rent: with a clearance operation at night, when fewer people are watching.
It was one scene in a continent-wide wave. Hundreds of thousands of people joined overwhelmingly peaceful youth-inspired marches across Europe on Saturday, October 31, as protests that began in France spread to Portugal, Italy and Germany. In France, 320,000 people marched according to the interior ministry, for a third straight weekend. Note the source of that figure. It comes from the interior ministry, the same ministry that runs the police.
Gen Z Has Got This
Germany saw particularly large rallies led by a youth initiative whose name roughly translates as "Gen Z has got this." The demands were concrete and unglamorous: better education and healthcare, stronger climate protection, a more affordable cost of living. They also opposed any return to compulsory military service. Nobody asked for a utopia. They asked for schools that work, doctors that exist, and not to be conscripted. The protests in several major German cities turned violent towards the end of the day, particularly in Frankfurt.
In Lisbon, thousands marched to demand more affordable housing, with signs criticising the government of Prime Minister Luis Montenegro. Portuguese demonstrators have been protesting for weeks, inspired by the Spanish movement, over rising living costs, especially housing costs.
The Spread
bne IntelliNews reported that the wave has also reached Belgium, Italy, with clashes in Milan, Turin and Bologna, and Spain. There, Catalan police raised their alert to the highest level after rioting in Barcelona on October 24, about one week ago, led to about 130 arrests, most of them minors. Most of them minors. The detention machine doesn't check ID cards for age before it fills its vans.
In Albania, students have been on the streets since October 13, about two and a half weeks ago, demanding Prime Minister Edi Rama's resignation.
Whose Money, Whose Priorities
The triggers differ by country. Thomas Fazi wrote in UnHerd on November 1: "These are the protests of a generation that believes it has been robbed of its future." Schools in France and Belgium, housing in Spain and Portugal, the cost of living in Italy, corruption in Serbia. The social contract their parents knew has collapsed, according to Fazi.
bne IntelliNews linked the unrest to a cost-of-living crisis it said started with an energy shock and has been worsened as governments divert money to rearmament and the war in Ukraine. Read that again. The same governments that can't find money for rent relief or classrooms are finding it for rearmament. And young Germans marching against compulsory military service aren't confused about where the budget is going.
The Electoral Trap
The ballot box hasn't offered much of a way out. A third of French under-25s backed the Rassemblement National in 2024, and more than a quarter of young German men voted for the Alternative for Germany (AfD), which tops national opinion polls, according to Fazi. Young people were told to channel their anger into elections. Some did, and the result sits at the top of the polls while the street fills up anyway.
The pattern is hard to miss. Peaceful marches get headcounts from interior ministries and a handful of broken windows get the headlines. Camps get cleared at dawn. Minors get arrested by the dozen. Meanwhile the grievances, rent, schools, healthcare, the draft, sit exactly where they were on Friday. Hundreds of thousands walked out of their homes to say so, and the response from the apparatus, so far, is batons and tent removal.
- youth protests
- europe
- germany
- france
- portugal
- housing costs
- cost of living
- student protests