European Groups Press Separate Demands on Schools, Housing and Wages

Students, tenants and a political movement are pressing separate demands in France, Spain and Albania, while an Italian labor union has called for action on wages and public services.

In the European Union, which includes France, Spain and Italy but not Albania, unemployment among people under 25 was 15.4% in August, compared with 6.1% overall. Those rates provide economic context for the three EU countries; they do not explain the motives of individual protesters.

France plans to rapidly deploy more than 3,000 substitute teachers to schools facing missed classes. Separately, the government is gathering students’ views on their school experience through Oct. 23. It expects to decide on improvements to the admissions process by the end of October. The two measures address different concerns raised by students.

At Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, a tenants’ group continues to organize around a housing encampment.

Separately, Spain’s Cabinet approved two housing decrees on Oct. 6. Both were published Oct. 7 and require confirmation by Congress’s Permanent Deputation. The first is already in force; the decree affecting rental contracts is scheduled to take effect Nov. 15 if confirmed.

In Italy, the CGIL labor union called for an Oct. 17 demonstration over wages, taxes, health care and education. Consumer prices rose 4.2% in September from a year earlier. Separate unrest in Milan on Oct. 18 led to 32 arrests, while 271 people were taken to police headquarters.

Albania’s Flamingo Revolution movement is demanding the government’s resignation and cancellation of the Zvernec development project. It accuses the government of corruption, failures in governance and a lack of accountability. “We demand the immediate resignation of the government,” the movement wrote in its published demands.

France’s student consultation runs through Oct. 23. Spain’s rental-contract measure faces a conditional Nov. 15 start date, and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has called a general election for Nov. 29.