What started as a small protest in Madrid to defend an 87 year old woman who is violently expelled from her appartment where she lived since she was 17 years old, in only one day grows out to a nation wide mobilisation against the might of housing corporates who bring the prize of housing rents to exponential hights. The expelling of one old woman was enough to light the spark that was smouldering for years in the hearts of millions of people, young and old. Massive rallies and a permanent tents camp on the Plaza del Sol in Madrid are demanding an end to the total degeneration of the right to payable rent and the right to housing.
It did not stop there. When the old woman died in hospital as a consequence of the extreem stress she went through, new massive rallies came to live, denouncing her demise as a murder.
The Spanish government came with a hasty reaction to better the situation, but the right wing parliament turned it down and forced the minority cabinet of Pedro Snchez to call for new general elections.
In France Lycée students started protests in front of their schools, because of the deplaurable state of their schools and the massive lack of teachers. The riot police attacked them violently and parents, teachers and school directors had to protect them from the onslaught. We are talking about young people in the age between 12 and 17 years old. Because of the initial violence of the riot police these protests throughout the whole of France became massive rallies in Paris on the 6 of October. They took the Bastille, a monument on the place where in the first days of the 1797 French revolution the populace stormed the Bastille prison. A simbolic repetition of the taking of the Bastille prison, with a big banner announcing the Second Revolution.
The violence of the riot police against the young masses was excessive, showing how France has become a real police state. But the young protesters maintained a nonviolent attitude, shaming the police with their constant slogans denouncing their cowardly violence. A powerful response coming from thousands of voices. And the protests are not over.
Also here the prime minister had to scramble, promising 5000 new teachers, not mentioning anything about the precarious state of the school buildings. Where he will find suddenly 5000 teachers, nobody knows.
In France it is not anymore about the schools alone. It has escalated to a denunciation of the whole political establishment, responsable for the economical and social crisis, and its growing warmongering . This young generation wants profound changes that garantee a bright and peaceful future. I do not think they will give up easily.
In Germany already several peace and anti-war rallies have taken place in Berlin and other German cities, with many thousands of participants, where young Germans shreaded the letters they got from the Ministery of Defence for military conscription.
Also in the Netherlands the first peace and anti-war rallies have taken place, also with many young people. In both countries a sudden revival of anti-war marches.
In Italy the young generation protests against the anti-immigration laws, defending the rights of people who are looking for a better live.
We all know how it were the young people who in Europe spearheaded the massive manifestations in support of the Palestinian people and denouncing Israels genocide in Gaza.
In all this protests it is clear that the young generation of today wants a profound change and an end to all forms of violence. Discrimatory, economic, educational, social, political, etc.
When you listen to what they have to say, it is not sloganlike. They explain in clear words what they want and not want. Their voices are soft while they explain, not strident. With feeling.
The are the hope for our future. They are the change. Let us give them all the strength they need to continue and broaden their nonviolent struggle until all the sectors of society will join them, becoming an unstoppable force that not even governments and their riot police and armes can stop.