From the cost-of-living crisis to the culture of consumption, what the protests reveal about the world adults have created
Social protest has spread across Europe, with demonstrations in France, Spain, Belgium, Albania, Greece, Portugal and Italy. Demonstrators took to the streets to protest poor school conditions, unaffordable housing, and a cost of living that doesn’t allow a minimally decent life. A palpable cost-of-living crisis that politicians don’t see because they are worlds away from it — totally detached from reality.
Rising fuel prices — a direct result of Trump’s erratic policies — were the last straw. Likewise, a luxury coastal development backed by Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, triggered protests in Albania in early summer. Although details vary by country, the protests have one thing in common: a message that is impossible to ignore.
The large-scale unrest tells us that people aren’t doing well. Their discomfort is real. Most importantly, protesters are very young, some as young as eleven.
Unfortunately, a violent fringe has obscured the protest’s true meaning. Fashion stores became the most visible stage for the unrest: young people ransacked them, then sold stolen items on Vinted.
How did the fashion store become a target of social protest?
In Italy, students started protesting for better schools and for their rights — and even against the new law capping migrant children at 30% per class. As if that were the real problem Italian schools face. So, for the second weekend in a row, stores in Milan’s centre boarded up their windows as if bracing for a hurricane.
In a video published by Il Fatto Quotidiano, a young boy says: “My family struggles to make ends meet. The items in those shops cost two weeks’ wages, or even my parents’ entire salary. We have to build our future on our own.”
Luxury has always existed. As kids, we grew up wanting things we couldn’t afford — we were told no. Yet we grew up aware of the cost of things, of the time it takes before you can allow yourself even small luxuries. But something has changed. Now the richest 10% own 75% of global wealth, while the bottom 50% hold just 2% (World Inequality Report 2026). While prices skyrocketed, wages remained stuck. Instead of investing in social policies, governments kept favouring the wealthiest. As a result, social injustice has grown sharply. Governments find money for wars — even for a genocide (Gaza) — but not for a decent life.
Those most affected are the young people, who have no job prospects and struggle to imagine a future. Their lives are shaped by a virtual world that pushes them to compare themselves with others on superficial terms.
But look again at what the protesters did. They targeted specific stores for what they represent: the logo. Which raises the real questions: Who did they learn from? Who taught them that the logo is the point?
And who, precisely, taught them the culture of consumption? For our society, we exist only if we buy something.
What kind of world have adults modelled and handed down? We taught kids that status lives in a logo, then acted surprised when the excluded ones went and grabbed the logos. As adults, we’ve spent time with youngsters, buying things for them and for ourselves, then taking selfies to show everyone our latest purchases.
We behaved as if we could buy their love instead of being role models.
What we weren’t told — what we didn’t tell the next generation — is that wanting was the point. We built an economy that sells belonging, and we sold it hardest to the ones with the least money. The latest iPhone, Nike, not books: that’s not a kids’ problem. That’s a curriculum. We wrote it.
And when the bill comes due, governments look for enemies to accuse. Migrants are the easy excuse — never the decision to move manufacturing offshore, never the wages that stayed flat while prices didn’t.
Prices keep rising. Wages stay stuck. Social injustice grows. That’s the whole story, and it’s the one nobody wants to say out loud.
Condemning violence is necessary. But it is not enough. If we want to understand the reasons for this social protest — and what young people are telling us — we must look beyond the broken shop windows and ask what we have taught them to value.