San Francisco Frontiers - Germans to join Europe's youth protest wave

From France to Italy and Spain, young protesters have taken to the streets in recent weeks to make their voices heard, with demonstrations sometimes degenerating into serious violence.

In Germany, about 150,000 people have so far registered to turn out Saturday in around 30 cities, including Berlin, Frankfurt and Cologne, for protests led by a group dubbed "GenZ regelt!" (Gen Z has got this!).

While the movement has stressed it rejects all violence, police are taking no chances and are deploying thousands of officers, while some luxury jewellery shops and clothing stores are boarding up their windows to ward off potential looters.

The protest movement has a range of complaints, from high cost of living to poorly maintained schools, government spending cuts and, more broadly, what it sees as politicians deciding on policies with apparently little regard for the younger generation.

"We are young people who no longer want to sit back and watch while decisions are made about our future without us being heard," said a statement from the group, which describes itself as a non-partisan alliance.

"Wherever we look, we see crises and hardly any prospects for us."

Spending cuts are being made in areas ranging from education to culture and healthcare, they say.

"The cuts are being made at our expense, while big corporations continue to profit and billions flow into rearmament."

They are also unhappy with Germany's bid to boost its military through a new voluntary service model, and fear that mandatory conscription could be reintroduced.

- 'Enormous pressure' -

Authorities are worried the protests, taking place on Halloween, could be marred by the same kind of violence seen elsewhere in Europe.

In France, nationwide demonstrations on October 17 degenerated into some of the country's worst rioting in years.

Berlin is in contact with officials in France and Italy amid fears that radicals from overseas could seek to join the German protests.

Marc Henrichmann, a senior lawmaker from the ruling centre-right CDU party, warned in an interview with the Handelsblatt newspaper that the "networking of the far-left extremist scene is international and coordinated".

But the interior ministry has stressed that a distinction must be drawn between "peaceful student protests" and a "violent extremist scene" that might hijack the demonstrations.

Authorities say that they do not as yet have any evidence of concrete plans for violence.

The "GenZ regelt!" movement meanwhile stressed that "extremist groups, anti-constitutional symbols, racism and hate speech have no place with us -- no matter from which side".

Christian Volk, an expert in protest movements, said there was the potential for Germany to see a major protest movement.

"There is an enormous amount of pressure building up," Volk, from Berlin's Humboldt University, told AFP.

Young people are demanding "that their political experiences and expectations for the future are also heard", he said.

But he said there were key differences with France, which has a "completely different tradition when it comes to confrontational forms of protest".

B.Ramirez--SFF