Protests continue to spread across Europe and the rest of the world: Why the “Gen-Z” uprisings shouldn’t be underestimated.
by Sylphia Basak for The 44 North, Contributing Writer - Politics
Editor's Note:
The following article reflects the views & analysis of the author. As with all opinion and essay submissions, the piece has been edited for clarity and reviewed carefully for factual accuracy, but the interpretations & arguments are the author’s own. The 44 North publishes an array of perspectives & voices to encourage and ensure thoughtful engagement with complex social, political, historical, and cultural issues.
"Those who refer to these uprisings as pure violence miss protestors removing barricades for ambulances and firetrucks. It ignores men pulling women from detention buses, or handing looted groceries to the unhoused and period products to women. [...] In other words, this revolution, like all which came before it, has been driven by unparalleled, profound love."
For the second consecutive weekend, protests around the world have mobilized en masse whilst police and government forces continue to crack down on dissenters. October 24th saw nearly a million demonstrators walking the streets of France. Protests in Italy, Serbia, Albania, and more all eclipsed hundreds of thousands, followed by sweeping mass arrests and tens of thousands of riot police deployed.
At the time of writing and publication, protests have erupted across several European countries: France, Spain, Italy, Albania, Serbia, Greece, Poland, Romania, and Cyprus.
(A non-exhaustive list via Dazed below):
Elsewhere in the world, Japan has seen increasing protests against U.S. military presence. Kenya has reignited protests in solidarity with educators. Brazil is mobilizing against the re-election of far-right candidate Bolsonaro. Chile and Bolivia are protesting similar far-right austerity in their countries, and Guadalajara, Mexico, is now seeing protests for clean drinking water.
Initially dubbed the “Europe Spring” by journalist Ahmed Eldin, this recent tidal wave of dis-ease appears to have started in France, led by students protesting cuts to education. In tandem with other movements across Europe, it wasn’t long before the momentum spurred on other countries, inviting their people to respond in solidarity—channelling anger, rage, tension, and frustration.
According to on-the-ground accounts, protests in France escalated following an incident where a police officer fired a stun grenade into the crowd, resulting in a 15-year-old boy losing his hand. On October 17th, a nationwide call for mobilization resulted in citizens across France marching, barricading, playing music, and yes, eventually, rioting.
Evidently, there is something to be said about October’s chill and its ability to ignite the revolutionary spirit. The days shorten and darken, and the people, at long last, feel their anguish is seen by something other than themselves. Political establishments have been stacking reasons to enact uprisings for as long as this generation has been alive, but certainly much longer:
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been systematically implementing ethnic cleansing campaigns of religious minorities across India. Italy's far-right government has implemented several austerity-based policies which have rendered grocery shelves empty. Protests in Spain started over an 87-year-old woman’s eviction, her death following shortly after. Serbian and Albanian youth have long been protesting corruption in their governments. The systemic violence of these political institutions has cumulatively caused the deaths of millions and harm to millions more, both in their countries and abroad. It has ravaged our environment to the point of near inhabitability, and yet, it is our response which is deemed by politicians and legacy media as “violent.”
Retaliation to violence is often used as justification for increasingly harsh police/military state tactics, and this recent onset of protests is no different. Marseille, Lyon, and Nice have now imposed curfews and a partial ban on protesting, while the Italian government is considering using biometric glasses to surveil crowds. Thousands in India have been arrested.
The narrative formed by politicians and far-right figures across the (Western) world has attempted to name Black and Brown immigrants as the primary culprits of rioting and looting. U.S. president Donald Trump was quoted saying, “...(France) a once-great country has been “conquered, looted, and burned to the ground by migrants, jihadists, and communists.” (Guardian)
French president Emmanuel Macron referred to October 17th as violent acts of “left-wing extremism.”
Of course, the narrative that immigrants are responsible for the riots contradicts uprisings in countries such as Albania and Serbia, which are significantly more racially homogeneous (white). These protests have gone largely under-reported.
Despite a rather clear throughline between protests—namely, austerity budget cuts to public services such as education and health, government corruption, and foreign (American) interference in policy—there seems to be a concerted effort to report them as isolated, disjointed acts of violence, rather than a response to the conditions of living under a Colonial-Capitalist system.
Headlines from legacy media reveal biased language favouring the narratives of their affiliated political establishments, leading with violence against the state and destruction of property. Before any additional context, “Unrest”, “looting”, and “violence” are terms used by the Financial Times (FT), Washington Post (WaPo), and New York Times (NYT) to describe the uprisings. However, true to precedent in mainstream reporting on left-wing/anti-imperialist political movements, invoking the imagery of “violence” is somehow never applied to what precedes the civil unrest.
A data report by NewsCord demonstrates this skewing of language and reporting from legacy media organizations throughout the protests:
As attested to by on-the-ground accounts, the organizers and demonstrators of these protests understand these existing contradictions, which is perhaps why legacy media has made such a vehement effort to discredit the nature of these protests.
Pictured are examples of some of the headlines used by Western media outlets:
There is and has always been a concerted effort to diminish the impact of Gen-Z protests and political organizations across the world. The youth of today are besmirched as “lazy” or increasingly conservative, likely as a means of discouragement from organizing in community. As such, many strides toward progress that our generation has made are delegitimized—even by our own. However, the reality is—clear by all on-the-ground accounts—that these protests have proven themselves to be incredibly well-organized, initiated by Gen Z’s “laziness.” That precision of organization and execution can only come from a thoughtful, acute awareness of economic strain that led to these protests.
Globally, the cost of living has, on average, risen 4.3% as of August 2026, while the minimum living wage has, on average, remained stagnant over the last 20 years; about 45% of countries experienced stagnation in minimum wages. Of course, this has exacerbated an already towering cost of living globally and contributed to fuel shortages.
Further, a notable double standard in reporting and general rhetoric around property and tourism fuels the incrimination of Gen-Z-led protests. Destruction of historic buildings is “blasphemous” in France and Italy, but a “byproduct of war” in Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, etc. Those who hand-wring over the disruption of their luxury travel and vacations too easily forget a citizen's right to quality of life.
For some, the entitlement that the state and certain sub-sections of the population feel toward comfort—while basic infrastructure literally and figuratively crumbles—has harkened back to testimonies of life in Israel-Occupied Palestine. In fact, the conditions which catalyzed Europe-wide protests are a direct result of Western nations channelling taxpayer money into military and war campaigns throughout West Asia. For example, and more specifically: The targeting of Yemen and Iran, which resulted in the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz or the Yemeni Houthis’ (Ansar Allah) continued targeting of Saudi Arabian oil tankers as defence. These have resulted in oil prices ballooning to unprecedented levels—a 60% climb since the war with Iran began (New York Times).
As organized as states have been, so too have protests.
Leading up to the October 24th protest in Paris, a comprehensive map and schedule coordinating the time and locations of protests throughout the city was created and posted to social media. There is a day shift and a night shift. There are legal aid and medical workers. There is class and national solidarity unseen in recent memory. An Albanian protester spoke of his regular contact with Serbians. Students of better-funded schools across France protested alongside those attending school in underfunded areas of the country.
Those who refer to these uprisings as pure violence miss protestors removing barricades for ambulances and fire trucks. It ignores men pulling women from detention buses, or handing looted groceries to the unhoused and period products to women. It ignores the fact that these protests have been organized and sustained by a disenfranchised youth and working class who have spent their lives surviving chronic catastrophe. This generation’s coming of age is defined by political, social, economic, and environmental turmoil. It seems inevitable that there would come a day when that momentum cannot be quelled.
In other words, this revolution, like all which came before it, has been driven by unparalleled, profound love.
Much to the chagrin of many world leaders—Trump, Macron, and Marine Le Pen—these protests have catalyzed tangible results.
Serbia’s Aleksander Vucic has stepped down after 14 years, and the student party has taken the majority of parliament seats. Brazil has successfully re-elected Lula Da-Silva over far-right candidate and former president Flavio Bolsonaro, despite American interference. The French government has pledged funding for schools and admissions overhauls, contradicting the finger-wagging of mainstream political establishments, who did their best—in earnest—to convince the world that riots don’t work.
Protests in Italy and Spain continue over food and cost of living prices, including riots cropping up in Bilbao, while protests across Asian and Latin American countries have sustained their cadence despite government repression.
And while, yes, our movements have not achieved the long-lasting systemic changes we hoped for (yet), there has been an undeniably seismic shift in our social fabric: Against global capitalism, imperialism, in the increased support for police reform and abolition, in the embracing of queer identities, etc. Through movements such as Black Lives Matter and student encampments in support of Palestinian sovereignty, our generation has (re)exposed many of the chasms in social infrastructure. We would be remiss to act as though that counts for nothing—especially as youth around the world continue to revolt.
As the U.K., several European countries, and the Japanese government urge their citizens to stockpile essential supplies, alongside Iran issuing instructions in the event of a nuclear attack, it is clear that Western leaders show no signs of relenting on war. As the price of essentials continues to increase and public services continue to be cut, protests against using taxpayer money for unnecessary war (all to avoid holding an apartheid state accountable for genocide) will continue to serve a vital purpose.
Protests are meant to disrupt the social order until authority has no choice but to concede to the demands of the public. Establishments would render us cynical and distrusting of our neighbours, unable to imagine a world where we stand arm in arm, united against a common enemy, for this exact reason.
Should coverage of these protests or any future ones halt, it will not be because protest and dissent have stopped. For as long as the root causes of these protests do not relent, neither will they. We should hope that action remains sustained. Otherwise, the alternative is a world in which a ruling class is entitled to enact perpetual catastrophe in exchange for the remaining power on a burning planet. Protests have proven effective, and we, as a generation, have proven we can change this world for the better.
Additional Sources:
Posts on X featuring on-the-ground accounts:
Post on X showing video footage from protests across the globe
Europe’s protests remain the gift that keeps on giving (TVP WORLD)
Global Wage Report 2024-25 (International Labour Organization)
Is France spinning out of control? (Financial Times)
Sylphia Basak is a journalist/writer and activist who uses a variety of mediums to convey the story she wants to tell. Her work prioritizes a decolonial lens, and seeks to counteract and analyze Western media and culture as a way of highlighting the primary contradictions of the current political climate.
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