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By:

Rajiv Shah

22 September 2025 at 8:32:23 pm

What Is Driving Europe’s Unrest?

Images of destruction can overshadow the grievances that brought people onto the streets. France has seen hundreds of thousands take to the streets. While most protests have been peaceful, some groups have engaged in arson, vandalism and looting. Belgium has seen its own confrontations, while grievances over housing, education, wages, energy prices and public services are surfacing across Europe. What links these protests is the convergence of different grievances. In France, student anger...

What Is Driving Europe’s Unrest?

Images of destruction can overshadow the grievances that brought people onto the streets. France has seen hundreds of thousands take to the streets. While most protests have been peaceful, some groups have engaged in arson, vandalism and looting. Belgium has seen its own confrontations, while grievances over housing, education, wages, energy prices and public services are surfacing across Europe. What links these protests is the convergence of different grievances. In France, student anger over teacher shortages, overcrowded classrooms and deteriorating facilities helped spark protests that drew in teachers, workers and trade unions. Concerns soon widened to inflation, housing, fuel prices, pensions, declining public services and distrust of government. In Belgium, education reforms, austerity and rising higher education costs have fuelled student anger, merging with wider discontent. Across Europe, accumulated grievances are finding a common outlet in street protests. The Roots of Anger For years, Europeans counted on affordable education, reliable public services and a better future for the next generation. That confidence is fading. Rising energy bills, housing and education costs, and job insecurity are straining households, while indebted governments struggle to fund healthcare, pensions, defence and welfare. Despite their wealth, many Europeans feel insecure as the opportunities and safety nets they once took for granted weaken. Immigration and Identity The unrest cannot simply be labelled an immigrant or religious uprising, nor can all protest violence be blamed on migrants. But immigration and integration remain part of the debate. Migration, asylum, national identity and religion have long divided European opinion. Questions about how many newcomer countries can integrate, the demands placed on migrants and the sustainability of welfare systems remain contentious. Economic pressures over jobs, housing and public services can deepen these tensions. Critics of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen argue that permissive migration policies have weakened borders and strained public services. The Commission points to tighter screening, border procedures and returns under the EU’s new migration framework. The unrest could intensify calls for stricter migration policies across Europe. Who Leads the Protest? Social media can turn a local grievance into a mass protest within hours, without a political party or formal leadership. Peaceful demonstrations can be disrupted by extremists, agitators or opportunistic criminals, shifting attention from the original demands to violence and looting. Images of destruction can overshadow the grievances that brought people onto the streets. Governments then face a difficult question: who speaks for a leaderless crowd? Unlike trade unions or political movements, digitally mobilised groups may have no leaders who can negotiate or call off protests. With no clear chain of command, even a genuine attempt at dialogue may struggle to reach the people on the streets. When violence disrupts legitimate demonstrations, distinguishing democratic dissent from organised disorder becomes harder. The economic fallout can be widespread. Blocked roads disrupt transport, strikes affect supplies, and violence hurts businesses and tourism while raising policing costs. Social disruption can thus become a powerful tool of political pressure. What Happens Next? Europe faces a difficult balance. More riot police may restore order, but governments must also address the grievances behind the unrest. Legitimate grievances do not justify violence, just as public disorder should not be used to dismiss peaceful protest. That means tackling housing costs, declining public services, education and energy insecurity, while enforcing clear migration and integration policies. Governments must also address public concerns rather than dismiss them as extremism, leaving political extremes free to exploit them. Protests in France and Belgium may fade, but economic insecurity, political grievances, misinformation and online mobilisation will remain challenges. The question is not just how to stop the unrest, but why so much discontent has built up. Recent protests in Delhi, Mumbai and other Indian cities offer a limited comparison. Despite different grievances, social media has shown how quickly discontent can move from smartphones to the streets. Mobilisations around electoral roll revisions, including those backed by opposition parties, are part of democratic politics. India’s institutions have so far absorbed such episodes without major disruption. Claims of foreign interference, however, require evidence. The causes and scale of unrest differ between India and Europe, even if the methods of mobilisation share similarities. (The writer is an advocate, legal, geopolitical and public policy analyst. Views personal.)

Selective Outrage

Correspondent
May 9, 2025
2 min read

India’s left-liberal media has long prided itself on being the torchbearer of secularism, dissent and moral rectitude. In the aftermath of ‘Operation Sindoor,’ the precision military strike launched by the Modi government against Pakistan-based terror camps, it has revealed its not a principled commitment to peace or truth, but a disturbing penchant for ideological prejudice, performative sanctimony and selective outrage.


The operation itself was a textbook display of calibrated force and geopolitical prudence. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, often caricatured as ‘authoritarian’ by the ‘liberal’ English-language commentariat, chose patience over provocation. He consulted opposition leaders, held detailed discussions with defence chiefs and took key international stakeholders, notably the United States and Russia, into confidence before authorising limited military action. The symbolism of ‘Operation Sindoor’ was also carefully crafted: a pointed reminder that the attack’s real victims were Hindu women widowed by Pakistan-sponsored militants in Kashmir. The government’s briefings were also strategic and symbolic as two ranking female officers, one of them Muslim, were made the public face of the mission, underlining a new Indian confidence that blends military muscle with democratic pluralism.


But this was unacceptable for India’s entrenched ‘left-liberal’ press, steeped in academic jargon, Western validation and a knee-jerk hostility to anything remotely ‘Hindutva.’ That a Muslim officer briefed the nation on ‘Operation Sindoor’ was branded ‘tokenism’ by such commentators. Others crudely alleged that the April 22 Pahalgam massacre was the logical culmination of reported atrocities against Muslims since Modi came to power in 2014.


The semantic nitpicking over ‘Operation Sindoor’ was maddening. An editor of a prominent magazine dubbed the operation’s name as ‘patriarchal’ and coded in Hindutva tropes. In a bizarre case of moral inversion, sindoor was likened to symbols of ‘honour killings’ and gender oppression, ignoring both its cultural resonance and the cruel reality that these women had lost their husbands in cold blood. For years, India’s ‘secular’ commentariat nurtured a preordained binary: the Congress may be flawed but was at least ‘secular’ while the BJP was an inveterate ‘fascist.’ Thus, the 2002 Gujarat riots are always focused upon but the Congress-backed pogrom of the Sikhs in 1984 is either downplayed or rationalised. Terrorism in Kashmir is tragic, but state retaliation is ‘jingoism.’ A strong Muslim voice in government is ‘tokenism’ but its absence is ‘exclusion.’ Even journalistic rigour is selectively applied. When Pakistan claimed to have downed Indian jets, some Indian outlets rushed to amplify the story before verification, inadvertently echoing enemy propaganda.


Dissent is vital in any democracy. But when its becomes indistinguishable from disdain, when editorial choices are dictated by ideological conformity, then the press becomes a caricature of itself. Ironically, many of these journalists enjoy robust free speech and loudly lament India’s supposed slide into ‘fascism’ from the safety of their X handles. Yet they turn a blind eye to Putin’s repression, Erdogan’s purges or Xi Jinping’s camps. In their eyes, Modi remains the greatest threat to democracy even as they broadcast their outrage freely, without fear of censorship or reprisal. ‘Operation Sindoor’ was a statement of cultural self-confidence. That confidence has rattled those who have spent their careers gatekeeping Indian discourse. Today, their monopoly is over. The people are watching and they no longer believe that the emperor has clothes.

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