(London = Yonhap News) Correspondent Kim Ji-yeon = Across Europe, protests against poor public sectors such as schools, housing shortage, and high prices are being led by young people.
In France, a high school student protest that started at one school last month spread nationwide and has continued for a month, with university students also joining in. Protesters are protesting against the poor educational environment and demanding that the government invest in education by expanding infrastructure such as teachers and school facilities.
On the 13th (local time), a second large-scale protest led by students and unions took place after this incident.
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg (23), who became internationally famous after leading climate protests during her school days, joined the protest in Saint-Denis near Paris on this day and said, “Young people are not participating in the discussion,” and “Our future has been stolen.”
Euronews reported that on the 8th, when 260,000 people participated in the previous protest, the sight of students climbing the pillars of Place de la Bastille in Paris attracted attention from around the world, raising questions about whether this protest would spread into a larger social movement.
A separate protest is scheduled to be held on the 17th to protest against the surge in living and energy prices. There are observations that this protest could signal a resurgence of the 'yellow vest' movement that lasted several months in France in 2018.
Student protests also spread to Belgium and Italy.
In eastern Liege, Belgium's main French-speaking city, hundreds of students occupied the streets for several days, and more than 100 people were arrested by police as protests became violent.
In Brussels, Belgium, protests took place for several days until the 12th to protest against the sharp rise in prices and the government's austerity budget plan.
The Associated Press reported that many of the protesters were young people and clashed with police.
In Madrid and Barcelona, Spain, protests are continuing over the housing crisis, sparked by the forced eviction of an 87-year-old man. This situation even triggered early general elections.
Neighboring Countries On the 10th, protests over housing crisis also took place in neighboring Portugal.
According to Euronews, thousands of people gathered in Lisbon and Porto, Portugal to protest, shouting, "I can't make a living on this salary," and holding placards that said, "I want to move out of my parents' house before I turn 50."
The social media account that led the protest posted, "People who are struggling with soaring housing prices and living expenses must step forward," and "We are working until we are exhausted to survive on one month's salary in order to pay skyrocketing fuel costs and basic living expenses and not be kicked out of the house where we live."
It is pointed out that the background to these protests, which have spread to various countries, is the financial instability of major European countries, including France. In a situation where the country's debt is increasing and interest rates are rising, fiscal austerity is needed to improve and maintain fiscal soundness, making it difficult to increase investment in the public service sector as public opinion demands.
The high inflation that has continued since the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine War is also continuing due to the Middle East War. As housing has been in short supply for a long time and has become an object of tourism commercialization or investment rather than residence, the housing shortage has reached a crisis level.
More fundamentally, some say that as aging continues, the European social system itself, which has been operated for several generations after the war, is beginning to no longer function as it used to. This is because Europe has collected relatively large taxes compared to the United States and redistributed them to social welfare such as pensions for the elderly.
Niall Ferguson, a senior researcher at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, pointed out in an article in The Free Press on the 12th, "Young people in Europe are taking to the streets to demand increased investment in schools and housing, but the target of their protests is the system itself that was created and operated for their grandparents."
He pointed out, “The difficulties of countries under fiscal pressure, such as France, Italy and the UK, are rooted in intergenerational imbalances in their tax and welfare systems.” He then pointed out that the number of elderly people who must be supported by the working population has increased, and the proportion of the youth population has plummeted, saying, "These countries are not countries for young people. The young generation has become less important than in the past."
