Europe has been set alight by mass protests.
What began with an 87-year-old disabled woman being evicted from her home in Madrid has developed into a revolt over the spiralling cost of rent and housing.
Within a week, protestors occupied the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, and encampments began to spread across Spain. Half a million people took to the streets of the capital on 3 October, paralysing the city as protesters chanted: “Either the rentier economy falls, or the government does”.
Fast-forward to the time of writing – the Spanish government has effectively collapsed. The ‘Socialist’ Party Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was forced to call snap elections after failing to pass decrees aimed at placating the movement.
From Madrid to Seville, and now Barcelona, chants of “your profits, our misery” and “no solution without expropriation” have rung out late into the evening.
– We are hearing chants like “socialism or barbarism.”
+ Yes. https://t.co/yvEVvPTcxk
— Antifa_Ultras (@ultras_antifaa) October 4, 2026
The radicalisation of the youth is palpable. Red flags have been paraded across the streets and main squares. In one viral clip, an incredulous interviewer asks a protester: “So people are chanting socialism or barbarism here?” to which she responds “Sí”. No further explanation needed.
The movement is posing the question: who does the city belong to? Does it belong to the investment funds that speculate on housing and have doubled rents over the last decade, or to the ordinary workers who run the city, but yet are struggling to get by?
Some sections of the movement are now calling for a general strike. Watch this space.
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Youth lead the way
Elsewhere in Europe, anger over war and austerity is bringing young people to the fore.
In Germany, more than 45,000 school students across 100 cities took part in their fourth nationwide strike against conscription. Young people are rejecting their government’s mad dash to rearm and make Germany ‘war ready’.
Behind the demand of “no to conscription” lies a broader rejection of the policies of the federal government, with “your wars – without us” becoming a key slogan.
As one student organising with the Strike Committee explained, there is no desire “to be put in the trenches for the interests of large corporations” that wish to “line their pockets at the expense of war”.
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Over in France, the collapse in standards across the education system has sparked a powerful movement. Teenagers at the lycées (state-funded high schools) are protesting against their education being undermined by teacher absences, overcrowded classrooms, and dilapidated facilities.
“The education budget is being cut to shreds while so much extra funding is being put into the army,” explained one student.
And how has the French state responded? With tear gas grenades, beatings with batons, and arbitrary police detention. More than 5,000 people have been arrested since the start of the movement.
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Rubber bullets have already shattered the jaw of one 14-year-old protester and taken out the eye of a 16-year-old. One 15-year-old has lost a hand after a police stun grenade exploded.
Despite these extreme levels of brutality, young people remain undeterred. Barricades currently block the entrances to 500 lycées, and striking workers are physically protecting the youth from state thuggery. There is more than a whiff of Mai ‘68 in the air.
The potential exists for young people to link their struggle with the waves of strike action planned for October – and bring down the hated government.
‘We just want a future’
What unites these protests is that they have brought class questions to the surface. Why is housing not a right? Why must our generation be cannon fodder? Why can you only get a good-quality education in the richer districts?
As one banner outside a Parisian school read: “Sorry to bother you… We just want a future.”
But capitalism can no longer afford to give our generation a future. It can no longer afford for the working class to live with dignity. And so we say: no longer can we afford to live under this system.
The backdrop to these struggles is the terminal decline of European capitalism. All parliamentary parties that remain within the confines of the profit-driven system will be forced to carry out savage attacks and cuts to social welfare. Whoever takes power is doomed to become unpopular.
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Sky-high rents, pricing ordinary people out of the cities they grew up in. Increased military spending to the beat of the war drum. Crumbling school infrastructure and overcrowded classrooms. Sound familiar?
For the Labour government, a word of warning: as you stare across the Channel, whipping up your “small boats” hysteria, pay close attention to the anger inflaming France.
For it will not be long until the streets are paralysed, schools are occupied, and red flags are flying here in Britain.
