Europe’s youth are rebelling. Malta should take note

No, it is not immigrants behind the unrest in France, but high school students exasperated by rising living costs and underfunded schools.

It is also a generation shaped by watching genocide unfold in Gaza and frightened by a resurgent far-right on the doorstep of power.

Most protesters have demonstrated peacefully, while a heavy-handed police response has fuelled tensions. Some have gone on a rampage, but it takes only a few dozen people in a crowd of thousands to cause mayhem. These episodes inevitably take on a life of their own on social media.

France’s foundational myths, from 1789 and 1848 to 1968, centre around the barricade. It should come as no surprise that today’s protesters also draw on this tradition. No one in their right mind condones burning public property, but democracies are messy. It is better to have protests with a chance of riot than to live in a political cemetery where nobody dares challenge the status quo. The student rebellion of 1968 was also marred by violence, yet we owe many of our personal liberties to that generation.

Scenes of mayhem will inevitably boost the far right by casting student rebellion as a threat to law and order. But refusing to address the grievances behind the unrest risks producing more of the chaos and violence that the far-right claims to oppose. In the longer term, this could signal a seismic generational shift.

As in 1968, the conflict is also generational: while older people drift towards the far right, younger people are turning left. In France, Marine Le Pen leads national polls with 36%, but among under-25s, left-wing firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon scores 41%, compared with 20% for Le Pen.

This is not solely a French phenomenon. In the UK, younger urban voters’ shift towards the Greens has shaken Labour; in Berlin, a left-wing party won local elections by focusing on housing affordability; and in the US, progressives such as New York mayor Zohran Mamdani are increasingly setting the agenda in the Democratic Party.

By putting affordable housing, school funding and living standards at the centre of the debate, without mixing them into a toxic cocktail of racism and exclusion, students are once again showing the way.

Students are also at the forefront of housing protests in Spain. In Albania, the Flamingo Revolution, which began in opposition to a Trump family-linked business project on a protected coastal site, has evolved into a wider call for political change and against corruption. In Belgrade, students have led a sustained challenge to institutionalised corruption, forcing the prime minister to resign without yet securing the systemic change they demand.

The Maltese response

Yet on social media, these events have often been consumed in what appears to be a parallel universe.

Some have swallowed Trump’s bait, parroting the line that newly arrived immigrants are behind the protests. This is dumb and misinformed. It replaces any serious examination of the social and economic grievances driving the unrest with a convenient scapegoat.

The other, more sophisticated narrative pushed by the government is that Malta is immune to protest and rioting because of the success of its economic model. In short, we are supposedly doing so well that people have no reason to protest, let alone riot.

To be fair, this is only partly true. Protests in Malta, including those against land speculation, are attracting increasingly young and diverse crowds. Moviment Graffitti has been at the forefront of many of these demonstrations, even if they have not reached the scale of the protests in Albania. Protests demanding justice for Daphne Caruana Galizia have also shown that people are willing to challenge the status quo.

Moreover, rather than rioting, Graffitti has distinguished itself by practising and perfecting the art of non-violence and direct action, which has been vital in waking authorities to their responsibility to protect public goods like access to pavements.

What should worry Labour is its weak appeal among younger people with left-wing inclinations, including those working in the arts, media and culture.

Yet it is also true that many younger people in Malta remain apathetic.

Part of the problem is that Malta lacks a non-partisan, youth-led tradition of collective protest and political action. In France, student movements have historically provided a space for young people to organise beyond party loyalties. Malta has no comparable tradition on a similar scale. Protests do happen, particularly around planning, the environment and justice, but they have yet to develop into a sustained youth movement capable of articulating a broader social and economic agenda.

This absence of collective action should not be confused with an absence of grievances. It may simply reflect a political culture in which young people have few avenues to turn their frustrations into organised pressure for change.

Robert Abela has used the unrest elsewhere in Europe to defend Malta’s economic model, arguing that government intervention, particularly energy subsidies, has shielded families and businesses from international price shocks. Speaking on Sunday, he posed the question: “If you have a recipe that’s working, do you throw it away or make it better?”

There is some truth in his argument. I have always acknowledged that part of Labour’s success in Malta lies in its anti-austerity platform. By refusing to impose hardships on working-class people, the government has bought time and kept a lid on some of the contradictions generated by its economic model. But Labour’s greatest asset remains its ability to convey the impression that it cares about people.

But the absence of riots does not necessarily mean that an economic model is working for everyone. Nor does economic growth automatically translate into a better quality of life. In fact, rampant building speculation has uglified our towns and villages. And the increase in short lets is contributing to an increase in rents and property prices, pricing young people out of the market.

Malta is hooked on a model that is increasingly coming under pressure and contributing to problems such as housing unaffordability, one of the grievances fuelling protests elsewhere in Europe. The chickens are slowly coming home to roost.

A model based on ever-expanding economic activity and population growth may generate impressive figures, but it also puts increasing pressure on housing, infrastructure and the environment. The question is not simply how much wealth is generated, but who benefits from it and who pays the price.

Moreover, Labour’s unwillingness to choose between conflicting interests is becoming increasingly costly. Rather than redistributing the wealth generated by a more sustainable economy, we keep pressing the accelerator to ensure that the government has enough revenue to finance public spending and buy social peace.

But this cannot go on forever. Subsidies can cushion the effects of international shocks, but they cannot resolve the contradictions of an economy that depends on the continual expansion of its workforce, tourism and construction, as well as the presence of multinationals that pay tax in Malta without employing anyone here.

Malta does not need riots to prove that something is wrong. But neither should the absence of riots be mistaken for an absence of problems.

In fact, one of Labour’s merits is that it can be made to yield to sustained pressure. Would we have imagined the Planning Authority acting against the illegal occupation of Sliema pavements had Moviment Graffitti not threatened to take non-violent direct action and remove the illegalities itself? In this case, people power won the day without activists having to take the law into their own hands.

These victories are precious. They show that collective action can force institutions to act, even in the absence of mass unrest. But while such campaigns can address specific injustices, the wider question of Malta’s economic model remains unanswered.

Ultimately, the real test of Malta’s economic model is not whether it can keep people off the streets. It is whether it can offer younger generations a future in which they can afford a home, enjoy decent public services and a liveable urban environment.