Europe’s “Arab Spring” – Ahmed Eldin | Out Loud – Substack

Students in France have started a revolution. On Friday and Saturday, young people filled the streets of Paris, Rome, Madrid, Brussels, Berlin and Tirana. Each government is busy describing its protests as a domestic matter, a dispute over school budgets or a tuition reform or a housing shortage. But the past forty-eight hours describe something larger: a generation has looked at the future Europe is building for it and refused it, and its governments have sent the police to make it accept that future anyway. It started in France with a modest list. On September 21, students walked out of the Lycée Saint-Exupéry in Créteil demanding more resources, replacements for absent teachers, repaired buildings and smaller classes. The French state answered with handcuffs. Police have held 7,950 people in custody since the blockades began, 6,773 of them minors. The ministry calls these gardes à vue . In plain language, the Republic has locked up nearly seven thousand children in a movement that began with a demand for teachers. During the 2023 riots, the comparable figure was 1,319 minors over about ten days. Franceinfo calls the current number something France has never seen . On Saturday, unions, former yellow vests and
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