{"id":11245,"date":"2026-10-28T05:44:50","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T05:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oltremani.it\/?p=11245"},"modified":"2026-10-28T05:44:50","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T05:44:50","slug":"a-generation-under-surveillance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oltremani.it\/en\/a-generation-under-surveillance\/","title":{"rendered":"A Generation Under Surveillance"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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In September, French students began filling the streets to protest overcrowded classrooms, cuts and austerity.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/h6>

By 6 October, more than 260,000 had taken to the streets across the country. From there, the wave spread. In Spain, people protested against a housing emergency that demonstrators call \u201clegalised theft\u201d; in Belgium and Portugal, against the rising cost of living. In Albania, the uprising began in response to the sell-off of the protected coastline at Zv\u00ebrnec to make way for a luxury resort project linked to investors close to the White House<\/a>. This is happening in a country that has already leased its territory to Italy to detain migrants in CPRs (immigration detention centres)<\/strong>.<\/p>

Different languages and slogans that seemed indecipherable to the adult world just a few weeks ago now offer us a way to understand a generation raised amid permanent crises<\/strong>, expected to be flexible and productive without being offered a future. A generation that, as education and welfare are cut back, is being presented with rearmament and war as its horizon. In Germany, conscription has returned, and thousands of young people have taken to the streets to declare that they do not want to become \u201ccannon fodder\u201d<\/strong>. It is younger generations who are leading the protests against the economic violence of a society preparing for war.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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In October, the wave reached Italy. <\/b><\/h6>

As early as Friday, 16 October, thousands of students across the country had gone on strike against war, racism and the \u201cbarracks-style school\u201d. The mobilisation continued on Saturday and Sunday, escalating the confrontation. The response was the same everywhere: preventive measures imposed on minors before demonstrations had even begun<\/strong>, hundreds of young people stopped and identified, and detentions and charges following the disproportionate use of force.<\/span><\/p>

In Milan, at the heart of a city synonymous with luxury and finance, clashes with the police broke out, shop windows were smashed and stores were looted. These are the images that dominated television news and that the government used to build its new decree, as if they were the only things worth seeing. But these acts do not emerge from a vacuum. They take place amid everyday violence that never makes the front pages: the violence experienced by those growing up without a home or an income, stopped because of how they look, watching their schools fall apart while rearmament is funded, and knowing that the future promised to their parents will never come. Those who ask us to look only at the shattered shop windows are asking us to ignore everything else.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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LISTEN TO THE TESTIMONIES<\/a><\/div>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Three days later, the Council of Ministers approved this government’s eighth security decree.<\/strong> The measures include:<\/span><\/p>