A violent and coordinated youth uprising? That’s exactly the picture Europe’s enemies want to paint | Alberto Alemanno

22 October 2026 at 05:00

Each country’s protesters have distinct grievances. Listen to them, not the voices telling us Europe is ungovernable

Last Saturday night, the town hall of Limoges in west-central France was set ablaze. By Sunday, images of the fire destroying a symbol of the French republic, and other scenes of unrest across France, were everywhere, but being used to tell very different stories about what is happening in Europe.

For some, the flames announced a pan-European youth revolt, proof that a single movement was sweeping the continent. Donald Trump, who had already insisted that the French schools protests were not about schools but about migration and Islam, urged Europeans to “close the borders”. The mayor of Limoges saw the fingerprints of an alleged ultra-left insurrection.

Alberto Alemanno is the Jean Monnet professor of EU law at HEC Paris and the founder of The Good Lobby

France readers Q&A: Guardian Europe columnists Rokhaya Diallo and Alexander Hurst will be live taking questions from our readers about the unrest in France from at 1500 BST / 1600 CEST on Friday 23 October. Send your questions by email now to conversations@theguardian.com or post questions in the comments from 0900 BST here.

Streeting delays defence jobs plan for young people after union pushback

The Guardian - World news

By: Alexandra Topping Political correspondent

21 October 2026 at 06:00

UK defence secretary had been due to unveil proposals on Thursday until concerns were raised at 11th hour

Wes Streeting has been forced to delay the publication of a plan to get more young people into defence industry jobs after pushback from trade unions, the Guardian understands.

The defence secretary had been due to announce the proposals on Thursday, but some unions in the sector are understood to have reacted angrily to the plans, accusing the government of bypassing their members and minimising their roles in job creation.

She was harassed for crude remarks about Modi at a Cockroach protest. Now she can’t leave home

The Guardian - World news

By: Niha Masih

20 October 2026 at 07:30

After a protest clip went viral, a teenager’s life was torn apart by threats that sent her and her family into hiding. Plus, a book on citizen journalism

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Before 24 July, a person I will call R was preoccupied with the ordinary routines of teenage life: experimenting with makeup, grumbling over mathematics homework and hanging out with friends at a tea stall.

That month, as the fever of student protests spread across the country, the 15-year-old watched on her phone as young people poured into Jantar Mantar, the designated protest site in Delhi, demanding education reform. She went too. But an 11-second video clip from the protest site, in which she made crude and profane remarks about the prime minister, Narendra Modi, upended her life.

The Guardian view on France’s protests: a polarised country is in a perilous political moment | Editorial

The Guardian - Europe

By: Editorial

19 October 2026 at 18:30

The scenes of social unrest and violence at the weekend are an ominous portent, ahead of elections which may deliver a far-right presidency

In Emmanuel Macron’s book Revolution, published ahead of the 2017 presidential election that he went on to win, he promised to restore hope to a country that was losing faith in its future. As Mr Macron’s lame-duck second term enters its last phase against a quasi-insurrectionary backdrop of torched public buildings and looted shops, the failure of that political project appears total.

The worst scenes of urban violence for years overshadowed a weekend of protest that gravely undermined what is left of the French president’s authority. As police lost control of the streets, more than 2,000 shops were ransacked. Far-left groups targeted town halls and local buildings, and engaged in pitched battles with the police, whose disastrously heavy-handed response to last week’s high school protests has succeeded only in escalating tensions.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Andy Burnham Will Never Cut Welfare

The Daily Sceptic

By: Mary Gilleece

19 October 2026 at 15:00

Andy Burnham has announced "big changes" to welfare to get one million NEETs back into work – but only once he's "rebuilt the education system". Sounds expensive, says Mary Gilleece. It’s clearly never going to happen.

The post Andy Burnham Will Never Cut Welfare appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

No 10: Hegseth ‘wrong’ to say most non-US Nato soldiers didn’t fight in Afghanistan – UK politics live

The Guardian - World news

By: Andrew Sparrow

19 October 2026 at 16:39

Downing Street delivered a rare rebuke to a senior member of Donald Trump’s administration

Asked why the Lib Dems were opposed to a third runway at Heathrow when they professed to be in favour of growth, Cooper said she did not accept that a third runway would produce all the benefits its supporters claimed.

She explained:

On Heathrow, it is clear from looking at all of the economic analysis of airport growth over the last few years that many of the promises made by all sorts of different airport companies simply haven’t come to bear.

The promise of higher wage jobs hasn’t been substantiated. Often it’s lower paid jobs, and often not as many as they’ve claimed.

Cut benefits to fund work support for young people, says Neet review author Alan Milburn

The Guardian - World news

By: Anna Bawden and Kiran Stacey

18 October 2026 at 19:30

Exclusive: Former health secretary says upfront investment in support is needed ‘if we are going to end the Neet crisis’

Ministers should cut welfare spending to fund more employment support if it wants to end the youth Neet crisis, the author of a government-led review has said.

Alan Milburn, the Tony Blair-era health secretary, told the Guardian he believed ministers should reduce benefits payments to help pay for more employment support, opening a potentially contentious debate within the Labour party over welfare cuts.

I saw rioting, looting, above all, anger. If French leaders think more violence will solve this, they’re mistaken | Oliver Haynes

The Guardian - Europe

By: Oliver Haynes

18 October 2026 at 16:06

It’s a perfect storm of protesters with heartfelt grievances and others set on conflict. The key here is the sense of betrayal that united them on the streets

The first thing I learned on the streets of Paris this weekend is that there is no arguing with teargas. I arrived at Place de la République just after 1pm yesterday. The mood was festive until police started firing volleys of teargas into the square from Rue du Faubourg-du-Temple.

I didn’t see the inciting incident – if there even was one – and tried walking into the cloud of CS gas hanging in the air. It was impossible. The gas clings to your nose and burns your eyes, and you quickly start struggling to breathe. I retreated towards the Boulevard de Magenta, blinking furiously to stop the stinging.

Oliver Haynes is a journalist and co-host of Sacré Bleu: the French presidential election podcast

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

French schoolchildren have been treated like enemies to be crushed – for telling the truth | Rokhaya Diallo

The Guardian - Europe

By: Rokhaya Diallo

17 October 2026 at 05:00

To protest against shameful conditions in schools is entirely legitimate. The government’s response is not

As a secondary school pupil in 1994, I took part in protests against a reform that would have allowed French employers to pay young people below the minimum wage. Our campaign was successful, but if we had had to face the terrifying police response unleashed on student protesters in France over recent weeks, I would have stayed at home.

A 14-year-old boy, Eden, suffered a fractured jaw and had teeth knocked out after a police teargas grenade struck him in the face. Sixteen-year-old Maël lost the sight in one eye allegedly after being struck by a shot from an LBD, a form of rubber-bullet launcher. Evan, 15, had his hand blown off in an explosion involving a police stun grenade. And in Dunkirk, a police SUV is alleged to have driven repeatedly at groups of secondary school pupils, as an officer could be heard saying: “Come closer, we’ll smash their fucking faces in.” Accounts from children left terrified by brutal treatment in police custody describe traumatic experiences with severe psychological and physical consequences.

Rokhaya Diallo is a French journalist, film-maker, activist and Guardian Europe columnist

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

British students, like their French peers, have been known to challenge authority | Letters

The Guardian - Europe

By: Guardian Staff

16 October 2026 at 17:32

Pete Crockett says the history of British education is not simply one of children dutifully accepting adult instruction, while Simon Dawson says Kitty Sayers misses the mark when describing English attitudes. Plus a letter from Kevin Donnelly

Reading Kitty Sayers’ interesting article, I was reminded of the rich, and perhaps too easily forgotten, history of direct action by British schoolchildren (Angry French students take to the streets. British students don’t – and I think I know why, 10 October). Far from being historically meek or unquestioningly compliant, they have demonstrated a remarkable capacity for challenging authority.

At Marlborough college, troops were once summoned to dislodge rebellious pupils occupying an island in the school grounds. In the late 1700s, Winchester college experienced several rebellions.

Saudi Arabia to execute man for being at protests and funerals when he was 15

The Guardian - World news

By: Tom Levitt

16 October 2026 at 06:00

Use of death penalty against people for crimes committed when they were children a ‘new low’, say rights groups

A young man faces imminent execution in Saudi Arabia for attending protests and funerals when he was aged 15 to 17, say human rights groups, in the latest example of the kingdom’s surging use of the death penalty for non-violent crimes.

Youssef al-Manasif was arrested in 2017 and accused of crimes including joining demonstrations for religious freedom by the Shia minority and attending funerals that the Saudi authorities deem to be protests. He was convicted and sentenced to death by the specialised criminal court, a secretive tribunal set up for terrorism-related cases.

When do young people leave the parental home?

EU Reporter

By: EU Reporter Correspondent

16 September 2026 at 07:00

In 2025, young people in the EU left their parents’ home at an average age of 26.3 years, up slightly from 26.2 years in 2024.

Since 2002, this average age stayed close to 26 years.

The highest average ages for leaving the parental home, at 30 years or above, were recorded in Croatia (31.5 years), Greece and Slovakia (both 30.9), and Spain and Italy (both 30.2). By contrast, the lowest average ages were registered in Finland (21.4 years), Denmark (21.8) and Estonia and Lithuania (both 22.7).

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/d/products-eurostat-news/age

Source dataset: yth_demo_030

In 2025, the employment rate in the EU among young people aged 20-29 years was 65.5%.

In most countries where the age at which young people leave the parental home is below the EU average, the employment rate for 20-29-year-olds is above EU average.

For example, in countries where young people tend to leave the parental home sooner, such as the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and Sweden the employment rate for young people tends to be higher.

In countries where young people leave the parental home later, such as Greece, Croatia, Spain and Italy, the employment rate was lower than the EU average.

Click to enlarge

Source dataset: lfsa_ergaed

For more information

Methodological notes

The average age at which young people leave the parental home is an approximate measure based on whether respondents of the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) and their parents live in the same household. The calculation covers each single year of age from 15 to 34. It takes into account, separately for male and female categories, the share of respondents living in households without their parents in the total population. An ‘exit probability’ for each single year of age from 15 to 34 is calculated for the total, male and female populations. The indicator shows the age at which 50% of the population no longer live in a household with their parent(s).

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For more information

Methodological notes