"It is the beginning": DW's protest scholar ties France's unrest to a Gen Z wave

Beyond the Paris clashes, DW News goes to the National Rally congress and asks Donatella della Porta whether French students belong to a worldwide youth movement.

Channel: DW News Story of October 26, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? One of DW News's most watched videos since yesterday, with 113,456 views.

France protests: Why the anger is crossing generations and borders | DW News

"I think it is the beginning," Donatella della Porta tells DW News when host Melissa Chan asks whether France is seeing the start of a larger protest movement. The director of the Center on Social Movement Studies at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence adds that it is also a moment when several other movements are converging.

That question is what sets this weekend program apart from the street footage carried elsewhere. It starts in the streets all the same. According to DW, hundreds of thousands of people marched across France despite a heavy police presence, and more than 1,000 were arrested. From Place de la République in Paris, correspondent Tessa Walther says the marches were mostly peaceful, with some clashes and tear gas, but "nowhere near" what the city saw the previous weekend. She says the Yellow Vests and students are planning further demonstrations over the cost of living.

Lisa Louis reports from Orléans, outside the National Rally congress where Marine Le Pen opened her presidential campaign. She describes a party that "is trying to depict itself as the party that will reestablish order." Louis also returns to where the unrest began, a thread DW has followed before, as we reported here: high school pupils who went to the barricades over concrete complaints about their schools, before wider discontent joined them.

Della Porta's segment takes the story beyond France. She sees unions and other movements coming together around living standards, and she criticizes the policing, saying officers are "dressed up for war." When Chan asks her to compare France with youth protests in Serbia, Morocco, India and Indonesia, she describes a Generation Z with shared traits around the world: economic strain, climate anxiety and distrust of political institutions.

The program runs nearly 18 minutes and was DW's most watched new video since yesterday, with more than 110,000 views. In the comments, viewers argue over whether "riot" is the right word and whether France can afford what the protesters are asking for.

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"It is the beginning": DW's protest scholar ties France's unrest to a Gen Z wave The full story on Trari: https://trari.com/en/story/dwnews-17680/

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The numbers

This was the most watched new video on DW News since yesterday, the top pick from a busy weekend of reports on France.

subscribers

6,480,000

▲ 10,000 in the last 7 days

total views

3,539,296,305

views per day

4,142,463

typical day: 2,602,021

the video

views

113,456

likes

589

comments

248

days online

1

subscribers: this channel and similar channels

60 Minutes Australia

6,750,000

The Wall Street Journal

6,720,000

The Sun

6,550,000

DW News

6,480,000

News24

6,270,000

The Telegraph

6,210,000

As of October 26, 2026 · Data source: Trari Social News, Trari Traffic Trends and Ranking Platform, Google YouTube

Subscriber, view, like and comment counts are YouTube's. Rates, usual days, rankings, comparisons and categories are Trari's own calculations.