EUROPE: YOUTH PROTESTS THREAD

Countries across Europe have been swept by a wave of protests by young people angry at the spiralling cost of living who have little trust in traditional institutions.

While local grievances have fuelled the fire, the movements that brought hundreds of thousands to the streets of France, Belgium, Spain, Italy and Germany at the weekend are all linked by shared continent-wide issues such as sky-high housing costs, poor pay and the climate crisis.

Schools, universities

School and university students have found themselves at the front line of these protests.

The spark was lit in mid-September, when French high school students took to the streets to demand better and more facilities, and an end to an opaque university admissions system.

"It's a European movement but France served as the catalyst," said Sylvain Boulouque, a historian of social movements.

After weeks of rallies, the French protests drew at least 550,000 people on October 17, with the largely peaceful demonstrations swiftly eclipsed by episodes of looting, arson and clashes with the police.

Four days later in Greece, more than 10,000 people rallied across several cities, with some bearing placards with slogans written in both Greek and French.

"The problems are shared between various European countries," insisted one protester, Filippos Armen, a physics student at Thessaloniki's Aristotle University.

'Uncertainty'

Across the continent, many people have found themselves face-to-face with "a model that has run out of steam", said Belgian sociologist Geoffrey Pleyers.

"What they're being offered is, at best, a job, and for many, a precarious one," said the specialist in social movements at the Catholic University of Louvain.

At the same time, their studies no longer guarantee the standard of living their parents enjoyed, as a result of high housing costs and the risks linked to the climate crisis.

- FRANCE 24 with AFP

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