What began in mid-September as a local protest by Paris high school students has, in less than a month, crossed borders and drawn in new layers of the population. Students in at least seven European countries are now in the streets or preparing to be, and are also intersecting a growing revolt from farmers and producers in Italy and other locations. The causes differ, but they share a common source: increasingly impossible conditions of life alongside hysterical increases in military spending.
In France, protests continue to spread. According to Axios, more than 6,500 people have been arrested, most of them minors, and hundreds of schools disrupted, while parents and teachers unions have joined students in calling for better education funding. French members of the Schiller Institute have revealed that schools in France are notoriously dilapidated, with some even experiencing rat infestations and other dark-age conditions.
Students have also commenced protests in Belgium as of Oct. 1, and surged in a demonstration in Liège on Oct. 7 where 139 were arrested. The protests are reportedly also over education funding, as well as in solidarity with France. In Italy, students occupied high schools in Turin and Rome on Oct. 5 under the slogan “Let’s do as in France.” Italian students cited underfunding, deteriorating school buildings and rising living costs among grievances they share with French students, Axios reports. In addition, Greek students called nationwide walkouts for Oct. 8 and Austrian students are preparing demonstrations for mid-October.
In Germany, thousands marched in Berlin and Stuttgart on German Unity Day, Oct. 3, under the slogan “No to rearmament, conscription and war!” EIR will feature an on-the-ground report on the LaRouche movement’s activities there in its upcoming issue.
In Spain, Maricarmen Abascal, 87, whose Sept. 23 eviction from her Madrid home of seven decades set off a national protest over inflated housing prices, died on Oct. 7. One sign in Puerta del Sol read “These are not deaths, they are murders,” reported AP. One protester told journalists, “The blame falls on the property owners and vulture funds that are taking advantage of a basic right and making loads of money from it.” Protest camps remain in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, unions are preparing a housing general strike for Nov. 11, and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has called elections for Nov. 29.
