Gen Z filled the streets of France, Chile, India and Spain in recent weeks, and their complaints sound alike: they can’t afford the present and don’t trust anyone to fix it.

Students lead the movements in France, Chile and India, while Spain’s protests, driven largely by renters, centre on housing.

France’s movement started small when students at a high school in a deprived Paris suburb joined striking teachers on September 21 to protest staff and resource shortages.

Officials sent extra staff and the strike there ended, but the protests had already spread nationwide.

Students now demand more school funding and oppose cuts in the proposed 2027 budget.

According to Al Jazeera, the government points to a 1.4 per cent rise in education spending to EUR 90.9 billion, but the students don’t buy it.

One Paris placard read “They don’t care about us,” and students told the reporters that they would continue “until October, November, December if necessary.”

The interior ministry counted 250,000 marchers on Tuesday, while organisers claimed 450,000.

According to CNN, President Emmanuel Macron asked police for “empathy” and announced five initiatives, while the education minister promised 3,000 more teachers.

In Chile, students blame President José Antonio Kast’s government for proposed education cuts in his 2027 budget.

Riot police fired tear gas and water cannons at hundreds of them this month, Al Jazeera reports.

According to Yahoo News, in March, students marched against plans to limit free university access, scrap the Becas Chile scholarship and tighten oversight of state-backed student loans.

In June, Chilean Teachers’ Union president Mario Aguilar accused the government of seeking “to provoke this, to create this situation to justify repression,” AP reported.

Indian protests have a different target with the Cockroach Janta Party, led by Gen Z organisers, says the Supreme Court’s chief justice, used for unemployed young people this year.

Earlier exam-leak protests forced Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to resign, and CJP organisers told the scandal had driven more than 20 students to suicide.

Now the party demands that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar resign over the voter list revision, and it called a protest at Jantar Mantar for October 10.

Railways cancelled trains to New Delhi and Hazrat Nizamuddin stations for 10 hours, with more than 20,000 police and paramilitary personnel deployed across the capital.

“Shut down the entire country if you are scared of the youth,” CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke said.

Spain’s anger comes from a different place as authorities removed 87-year-old María del Carmen Abascal from her Madrid home of 70 years last month, and her case became a symbol of the housing crisis.

Right-wing parties then voted down Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s emergency housing decrees, and he called a snap election for November 29.

Tens of thousands of young Spaniards have marched in 50 cities.

Abascal died on Wednesday, and protesters now carry signs reading “Not even one more Maricarmen!”.

PM Sánchez has announced 21 urgent housing measures, but ABC News noted that polls point toward a possible conservative and far-right victory.

The protesters themselves describe a shared squeeze. Young people “can’t get hired” and “can’t afford rent.”

Alfred, a 19-year-old Belgian student whose peers have joined the wave, told Reuters, “We support each other because we’re facing pretty much the same issues.”