The US has translated this belief into concrete policies. For example, to boost rare earth metal processing and magnet production, the US Department of Defense has offered financing, long-term purchase commitments, and guaranteed minimum prices.
By Ana PALACIO
At first glance, the wave of student-led protests that has swept France may resemble the events of May 1968. Both involved growing crowds of demonstrators demanding education reform, criticizing the government, erecting blockades, and confronting riot police. Both also attracted the kind of destruction that turns protest into destruction. But while the students of 1968 sought to overthrow the established order, today’s protesters want the established order to serve them. To understand a generation, one must consider the world in which its members lived when they turned 20. The students of 1968 grew up with parents who had experienced war and deprivation. While the sacrifices and hardships of the older generation were worthy of respect, their children rebelled against their authority—and against the system they upheld.
The students of 1968 had relatively few material possessions and limited opportunities to travel. The women among them were headed for marriage, not professional achievement. These young people did not expect their parents or the state to remove every obstacle to prosperity, let alone hand them opportunities on a silver platter. They simply wanted to prevent the system from getting in their way. That generation – my generation – knew that, ultimately, we would find jobs and live better lives than our parents. And so did the one that came after it. In fact, the generation that grew up after the fall of the Berlin Wall faced a world filled with opportunity, thanks in no small part to globalization and rapid technological innovation. While the first postwar generations grew up with some awareness of planetary limitations, highlighted in the 1972 Club of Rome report “The Limits to Growth” and the 1992 Earth Summit, they were convinced that tomorrow would be better than today.
The current generation of young Europeans possesses freedom, material resources, opportunities to travel, and technological capabilities that surpass anything we could have imagined in 1968. Their demands, however, are remarkably simple: decent schools, secure jobs, affordable housing, and the opportunity to raise a family. From the perspective of my generation, there seems to be a certain sense of birthright: while we set out to conquer a world of seemingly endless possibilities, today’s young protesters expect more from institutions. But they also face material obstacles that we have never seen before. Europe has fostered rising expectations among young people, while its capacity to generate the welfare needed to meet those expectations has deteriorated significantly.
While the rebels of 1968 belonged to the large post-war cohorts, today’s young Europeans are a shrinking minority in aging societies whose political systems protect vested interests above all else. The rising cost of living and high youth unemployment have made it difficult for young people to start an independent life: according to a Eurostat study, Europeans left their parents’ homes at the age of 26,3, on average, last year, with the figure exceeding 30 in some countries, including Italy and Spain.
Meanwhile, accelerating climate impacts and the rise of artificial intelligence are creating deep uncertainty about the future. While some of these challenges extend far beyond Europe, the European Union’s failure to respond to a transformed world has exacerbated the problem for its young people. In 2008, the EU’s GDP was comparable to that of the United States; today, it barely reaches 70% (in current dollars). Brexit and exchange rate movements explain part of the difference, but Europe’s persistent weaknesses in productivity, innovation and technological scale are linked to politics.
Former US President Joe Biden understood that the world had changed, and COVID-19 highlighted the strategic vulnerability that reliance on distant suppliers for essential goods implies. The Biden administration therefore implemented an industrial policy, including investment incentives and targeted measures to secure critical supply chains, to rebuild domestic capacities. Although this effort included some domestically oriented policies, it ultimately aimed to strengthen the global institutional order that had served the US so well. However, US President Donald Trump, since returning to the White House in 2025, has effectively undermined that order, turning against friends and allies, launching trade and conventional wars, withdrawing from international bodies and agreements, and dismantling the tools of American soft power. However, the Trump administration recognizes that industrial production, technological leadership, and control of critical resources are vital for security and prosperity in the 21st century.
The US has translated this conviction into concrete policies. For example, to boost rare earth metal processing and magnet production, the US Department of Defense has offered financing, long-term purchase commitments, and guaranteed minimum prices. Rather than simply subsidizing one or two factories, the state has created the market conditions that make a strategic industry viable. Europe has also recognized the need to act more strategically, such as by developing critical industries, strengthening supply chains, and building technological autonomy. Former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi has documented the EU’s competitiveness crisis with devastating clarity. The European Commission has included its findings in a “competitiveness compass.”
But so far, Europe has struggled to translate ambition into action. Swedish battery maker Northvolt received huge amounts of public funding to challenge Asian dominance, but it failed last year due to production difficulties, supply chain disruptions and changes in demand. In defence, Europe uses Airbus as a testament to what industrial cooperation can achieve, yet earlier this year France and Germany abandoned a landmark project to build a next-generation fighter jet. Europe pursued integration not as a means of managing decline, but as a way to overcome a bloody history and enable countries to achieve more than either could alone. Today, Europe’s leaders risk reversing that ambition: protecting yesterday’s achievements while giving up the means to deliver tomorrow’s.
Europe’s leaders should not respond to the frustrations of young people with ever-blurrier promises. Today’s young people are coming of age in a world where power, security and economic prosperity have become inseparable. They need and deserve from their leaders a credible agenda for delivering affordable housing, educational excellence, competitive industries and decent jobs.
(The author is a former Foreign Minister of Spain and former Senior Vice President and General Counsel of the World Bank Group)