Something deeper than a conventional outburst of youthful anger is happening in Europe. From France and Belgium to Italy, Albania and Serbia, young people have taken to the streets.
The immediate causes may differ, ranging from education, the cost of living and housing to corruption and a lack of job prospects. But they appear to share one conviction: their future is being mortgaged.
As the protests spread, so do references to an impending generational war, with young people, according to this particular narrative, being asked to pay for the prosperity secured by older generations.
Yet the protests themselves suggest that reality is quite different. In France, on 24 October, about 410,000 people took to the streets, as workers, trade unionists and pensioners joined pupils and students, united by calls for action on the cost of living and public services.
Perhaps, then, the real dividing lines are not where some are trying to draw them.
“They even stole our ability to imagine a future, to dream,” a 21-year-old from Milan told Reuters, blaming the “ruling class”.
That phrase describes more than young people’s anger. It captures the collapse of the post-war social contract in almost all Western democracies: that children would be better off than their parents.
This pessimism is not unfounded, as the so-called “housing crisis” shows. In Greece, home ownership among people in their thirties fell from 78% in the mid-1990s to 58% in the latest available measure.
Moreover, according to the OECD, households aged 25 to 34 spend, on average, 14 percentage points more of their disposable income on rent or mortgage payments than households aged over 65.
In short, financial independence comes later, starting a family is put off and demographic decline worsens. And so another, less visible, vicious circle begins.
The political arithmetic of ageing
As the young become fewer, the electoral influence of older people grows. A study of 14 European countries found that in 2002, people under 50 accounted for about 52% of those who voted. That share had fallen below 45% by 2018.
Politicians, of course, know perfectly well which groups are larger and more likely to turn out to vote, and tailor their priorities accordingly. The same study found that party platforms had shifted towards issues of greater concern to older people, particularly pensions.
Given that public pensions absorb about 16% of GDP in Greece and Italy, it is no surprise that the intergenerational imbalance is gradually becoming a central topic of public debate.
In an article with the provocative title “How the boomers screwed Europe” the Economist describes what is essentially an intergenerational “robbery”.
Baby boomers, it argues, benefited from cheap housing, a substantial rise in the value of their assets and generous pension systems, leaving the bill to their descendants.
The economic data it cites have a solid basis. The OECD records that across 19 economies, the average net wealth of older households is six times that of households aged 25 to 34.
But there is a huge gulf between recognising inequality and collectively blaming an entire generation.
Who pays, who decides
Who exactly is responsible for the situation today? The people who worked for decades, paid taxes and social security contributions, funded their parents’ pensions and saved for their old age?
Or the governments and major parties that designed and maintained these systems, and often exploited them for political gain?
Voters certainly called for protection for incomes and pensions. But it was the parties that promised it, even when they knew they were shifting the bill into the future. Centre-right and centre-left governments took turns in office, putting off difficult decisions.
Citizens changed governments, but the underlying policy direction changed very little. That is why it should come as no surprise that many young people are abandoning traditional centre-right and centre-left political forces and turning to anti-establishment politics.
There is, however, another dimension, one of class, that is often missing from the clamour about a “generational battle”. A young person who will inherit property, study at an expensive university and draw on family connections does not start from the same place as someone who works to pay for rent and their studies.
According to an earlier OECD study, home ownership in Greece among households aged 16 to 34 who had received a substantial gift or inheritance stood at 94%, compared with just 13% among those who had not been so fortunate.
The phenomenon appears to have intensified, meaning that parents’ wealth increasingly determines their children’s opportunities.
Protests by young people, then, are primarily a sign that radical changes are needed in the way Europe works. Tax and housing policies are needed to curb the concentration of wealth and widen access to ownership, alongside more productive investment, better education and sustainable social security.
In short, what is needed is a new political compact that shares opportunities and burdens more fairly, rather than an approach that fuels intergenerational conflict.
A society that cannot offer its children, as a whole, the hope of a better life has certainly failed. But if it also turns them against their parents and grandparents, it will undermine what still holds it together.
The very notions of social cohesion and intergenerational solidarity.