So who's running it?

Transcript

1. In September, pupils at one high school outside Paris blocked their own front gate.
2. The day before, their teachers had gone on strike over staff shortages.
3. By last Saturday, young people had marched in at least 8 European countries.
4. So who's running it?
5. In France, blockades spread school to school on TikTok and Snapchat.
6. On 17 October, pupils joined nationwide marches against the cost of living.
7. In Madrid, it began when an 87-year-old woman was evicted.
8. 3 days later, tens of thousands marched for housing.
9. In Liège, pupils started blocking schools on 1 October.
10. In Rome, students occupied their schools.
11. In Porto, housing protests followed a new rent bill.
12. In Tirana, students wanted lower fees.
13. In Athens, thousands of students and teachers marched for their schools.
14. And on the 31st, Germany: about 120,000, by the organisers' count,
15. demanding money for schools and no return of compulsory military service.
16. Local reasons.
17. Different weeks.
18. Then came the riots.
19. That night in Frankfurt, shops were looted and police were attacked.
20. Germany's interior minister blamed violent
21. left-wing groups and what he called migrant troublemakers.
22. Frankfurt police said most rioters showed no political motive.
23. France's government had blamed the far left; the Paris prosecutor could not confirm it.
24. In Spain, after riots in Barcelona,
25. the foreign minister said intelligence
26. services were looking into foreign interference.
27. Even the German minister said the afternoon marches had been peaceful.
28. So what connects the marches?
29. In Italy, they chant: let's do as they do in France.
30. In Athens, a banner: from Greece to France, give money to education.
31. In Leipzig, a placard: fight like the youth in France.
32. We checked public Telegram chats: 47, in France, Italy, Germany and Spain.
33. We could read 43.
34. In those, no channel had posts forwarded into 2 countries.
35. What we couldn't see: private groups,
36. chats Telegram had hidden, and anything already deleted.
37. What we could see looks like inspiration, not orders.
38. France's main student union says unions across Europe share advice.
39. There is one joint plan, older than these marches.
40. Since the summer,
41. a coalition of student groups says it has planned a strike in at least 8 countries,
42. against rearmament and conscription.
43. Their date: 20 November.
44. Germany's organisers say they will join,
45. and Italy's largest union has called a general strike that day.
46. How many will come?
47. Nobody knows yet.