Youth protests around Europe multifaceted and not 'one phenomenon', says EU law expert

And beyond France, the cost of living and housing crisis has been sparking unrest all across the continent. From Albania to Portugal, Italy to Spain, thousands have been taking to the streets this weekend, declaring that soaring housing costs and inflation have left them suffocating. For more, we can bring in Professor Alberto Alemano. He's a professor in EU law at HEC Paris. Good morning, Alberto. Thank you so much for joining us. Just did you see these protests coming first and how long do you think they could last? I would say Europe's youth protests are not one movement at the moment. They reflect shared anxieties about job, living costs and the future. And they are becoming violent, at least in some corners of Europe, which is complicating the ability of the youth to convey their message to political leaders. However, treating this protest as a teenage revolution or as a pan-European movement might be inaccurate and even misleading by fooling an image of Europe that is destroying itself, which I don't think is entirely accurate. You're right in pointing out that these protests are spreading across Europe, but I think their immediate cause differs from one another, and that's why I don't think we should treat them as one phenomenon. We are probably talking about different situations, different reasons that sparked this protest with some imitation that is occurring among them, fueled by media coverage. Well, how can politicians catch hold of the situation? As you've seen in France, the political response has not been adequate. Well, by now it is pretty clear that the French protests have not been foreseen or treated with due of care. They were largely anticipated, and yet the police and the public authority were not able to handle, to prevent, and to mitigate disaster. And there is also evidence suggesting that there has been some abuse of power with many thousands of arrests, some violence and accidents that could have potentially been foreseen. And that's why we've been hearing in the past few hours quite strong calls for inquiries in order to find out exactly what went wrong and to avoid this to happen in the future should this protest continue across countries in Europe. And have EU heads of state and government been too focused on issues like defence and security, far away from people's real-life struggles? Well, there are many instances in which we've been hearing students, the youth and even trade unions and workers claiming that there is something broader than the school issue here. We see that the capacity of most countries to spend for welfare state has been reduced, reduced by this major rush towards rearmament of Europe. And this is causing concern, concerns among different peoples of Europe who feel affected, in particular the younger ones, because they know that their future will be bleak compared to that of their own parents. We have a lot of polls suggesting that more than half of the youth in Europe believe that their future won't be as right as that of their parents. And that, of course, is a very important message which has been perhaps blurred out because, of course, it's the violence and those images that are, of course, dominating the headlines this morning. Professor Alberto Alemano, thank you so much for joining us here. Thank you.