STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Young people are shaking things up across Europe. In countries from France to Serbia, grassroots protest movements begun by students are calling for a change in direction.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
In Serbia, they are having a huge impact. A student-led movement beat the party of the longtime nationalist leader in parliamentary elections Sunday.
INSKEEP: We start in France, where demonstrations against the government took place again over the weekend. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley had another not-quiet weekend in Paris. Hi there, Eleanor.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Hi, Steve.
INSKEEP: OK. We have seen quite a bit of violence in recent weeks. Was the government at least able to avoid that?
BEARDSLEY: Yes. Largely, it was, with huge security on the ground and partly by banning protests in some cities and changing protest routes in others. Still...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in French).
BEARDSLEY: More than 100,000 people demonstrated in Paris, according to government figures. I was out there despite the last-minute change to their route to avoid Place de la Bastille. That's the Bastille Plaza, a site for uprisings and, of course, a revolution more than 200 years ago. So while the government may be relieved that it avoided the looting and violence, this movement is not waning. More than 400,000 people came out nationwide. And remember, it started in mid-September with high school students demanding better conditions. Now a broad swath of society has joined in - unions, public-sector workers calling for more public spending and decrying a capitalist society where they say the rich are getting richer.
INSKEEP: How does this affect the political landscape in France, given that we're six months ahead of a presidential election?
BEARDSLEY: Yes. Well, the far-right party, the National Rally, is capitalizing on scenes of violence and looting that we've seen around the protests. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who's running for president for the third time, formally launched her candidacy this weekend at a two-day rally of her party in the town of Orleans, about 100 miles south of Paris, under heavy security. Here she is at the rally.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARINE LE PEN: (Speaking French).
(BOOING)
BEARDSLEY: So she's talking about the state of the country after 10 years of President Emmanuel Macron. She uses words like decline, ruin, erasure, riot and chaos. She's calling for law and order and a renaissance of France. Polls show her as the frontrunner in the presidential elections next spring. So it seems the battle lines are being drawn, Steve. The protesters in the street are from the left. For them, she is a horror. But the center is largely absent. Macron cannot run again, and no one wants to associate with him because he's so unpopular. And a viable centrist candidate has not yet emerged.
INSKEEP: Wow. How does that circumstance in France fit in with these other protests throughout Europe?
BEARDSLEY: Yeah. Well, they - these protests have taken place, you know, in, like, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Albania and other countries. The spark that sets them off is sometimes different. But what we're seeing - you know, like schools or affordable housing and even corruption. But what they have in common is they're mostly leaderless. They're being led by young people who are angry about the world that's being left to them. Something astounding happened yesterday in the small but influential Balkan country of Serbia. Listen to this.
(SOUNDBITE OF HORNS HONKING)
BEARDSLEY: That is the joy sweeping Serbia's capital of Belgrade last night after the party of longtime strongman Aleksandar Vucic was defeated by a student movement. And here is one of those students, Petar Voijnovic, 22 years old.
PETAR VOIJNOVIC: It's crazy out here. Everyone's screaming, victory, victory. It's - everyone's celebrating that we got rid of corruption and primitivism.
BEARDSLEY: This movement began two years ago as a student protest movement after a roof collapsed at a train station, killing 16 people. The protesters said the shoddy construction highlighted government corruption, lack of accountability and mafia involvement. They kept up the pressure for two years, holding hundreds-mile-long marches. And their powerful movement eventually drew a huge swath of citizens from the middle class and opposition voters who had long wanted a different future and saw, finally, that it could be possible.
INSKEEP: NPR's Eleanor Beardsley in Paris, thanks so much.
BEARDSLEY: Thank you, Steve. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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