Europe's youth protests stem from a broken social contract, and the continent's future will be shaped on the streets as well as at the ballot box
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/editorial. "The Guardian view on Europe’s protests: the social contract has broken – and young people want solutions | Editorial | The Guardian." October 23, 2026. www.theguardian.com
The Gist
The Guardian argues that protests spreading across Europe, though sparked by different local issues like schools, housing and military service, share a root cause: young people feel the deal that previous generations got no longer applies to them. Governments haven't offered answers, and the far right is trying to exploit the anger without having real solutions. So Europe's direction will be decided on the streets as much as at the ballot box.
Conclusion
The wave of protests across Europe, though driven by distinct local triggers, reflects a common breakdown of the social contract between governments and young people. The continent's future will be shaped by this street unrest as well as by elections, and the far right lacks real answers to the protesters' concerns.
Premises
- Protests in different countries have distinct triggers: school conditions in France and Greece, housing in Spain and Portugal, and possible compulsory military service in Germany. Participants nonetheless recognise their shared grievances.
- A generation reasonably expects to be worse off than their parents because of inadequate education, job precarity, delayed independent living, pension contributions they expect never to receive in return, and climate anxiety.
- Governments constrained by debt and bond-market fears either cannot or will not offer young people solutions, so young people have little confidence that voting will fix their problems.
- Rising inequality means young people watch others grow wealthy, sometimes by profiting from their misfortune, as when housing is treated as a financial instrument rather than a home.
- The unrest echoes last year's global gen Z protests, which were also driven by affordability crises, heavy-handed security forces and a sense that ordinary people are being left behind.
- Far-right parties are trying to capitalise on the unrest by blaming immigrants and open borders and calling for a strong hand, but they do not have real answers to the protesters' questions.
- Elections in Spain, France, Poland and Italy within the next year threaten a radical rightward shift in the EU, so street politics and electoral politics are interacting.
Assumptions
- The common underlying cause of the protests is structural (economic and generational) rather than merely a set of unrelated local grievances.
- Young people's pessimism about their economic prospects is accurate and justified, not just a perception.
- Governments have the capacity to offer solutions, or at least are choosing not to, despite fiscal constraints.
- Protest movements can influence political outcomes independently of, or in addition to, elections.
- Far-right economic programmes would not address housing, education, or precarity concerns.
- Violence at the protests is mostly the work of a minority and does not undermine the movement's legitimacy or its political effect.