Gen Z protests in Germany: university strikes announced

The Gen Z protests should be brought to universities on a large scale. When the next youth protests take place on Friday, November 20th, operations in many universities will be paralyzed with a strike by the student body. This was announced by the group “Gen Z regulates students” on Sunday, which wants to be a “new flank” of the movement. Specifically, strikes are planned at up to 35 universities in 33 cities.

According to the group, 90 students met in Hanover over the weekend to found “Gen Z regulates students”. These included representatives from Asten, the Verdi Youth, the SDS, the International Youth Association, Opposition and the Students Against the Right. Their plan: to call general meetings at their respective universities in the week before November 20th to vote on a “democratic majority strike”. In the universities with a majority, teaching should then be made impossible on the day of the strike.

“Either we are the generation that watches as the future is taken away from us, or we manage to gain a future worth living,” said student Veronika Dinter, who has also acted as press spokesperson for “Gen Z regulates Berlin”. She explicitly drew a comparison to the '68 movement. “Youth demands have been ignored for years, now we are declaring war on the Merz government,” she said.

The group's first demand is: “Merz has to go.” In addition, universities should reject military research. There are also demands for an end to the rearmament policy and no reintroduction of compulsory military service, a stop to fixed-term contracts at universities, more money for education and an end to “racist attempts to divide” the movement by the press and politicians. The students also position themselves “against all war and genocide”. “It is clear to us: the rich have to pay,” said Dinker. That's why a wealth tax is needed.

It is not yet clear what the university strikes will look like. This should be determined at the general meetings, said Dinker. The idea, however, is that there are no “small actions”, but that hundreds of students take part in the protests. In the past few days, student groups had already tried to take the protests to universities, including at the Free University of Berlin and at the University of Kassel, where the Senate had abolished the civil clause that prohibits arms research.