As student’s and social movements grow in France, Italy, Spain and Albania, professor Della Porta is being interviewed by international media. Below is a synthesis of her answers.

While also embedded in national specific contexts and students’ traditions of mobilizations, the protests of the last days hare strongly connected in terms of slogans and content. “Siamo Tutti Antifascisti” is a core slogan in France, where it is sung in Italian, and from there came back to Italy (…)

(…) Not only the slogan but claims are the same. At the core of the protests are the right to study and public education. As in the Spanish protests on the right to housing, the students are also well aware of the class dimension of the attack to public education, as neoliberal policies disinvest in public school, while allowing for a privatization of education which increases the advantages of the rich and super-rich (educated in private schools) over the rest. Finally, face to repression, the students also defend a freedom to protest they see as under attack.

(…)  These mobilizations build upon a long tradition of student strategies, but also involve the broader society, through the mobilization of teachers and family. A central element of student’s protests is however also their capacity to articulate and build upon generational identities. The GenZ, which grew up under multiple crises (austerity, climate change, pandemic, wars), has been socialized in the protests in solidarity with Palestine and against the Israeli genocide (…).

As it often happens, the students are inspiring broader social mobilization on core issues as inequality and authoritarian turns. They call for investments in social welfare against militarization and for democracy against repression. GenZ is the most hit by the turns in neoliberal capitalism, by the decline of public services and the threats of war. (…)

The protestors have long lists of specific demands related with the right to education, investment in public school, but also democratization against increasing democratic backlash.