“Youth with no future” take to the streets

“Anger hits the streets”, leads Spain’s El País daily following demonstrations held in fifty cities that drew many thousands of people. They were mobilised by social networking sites and the Democracia Real Ya (Real Democracy Now) platform to protest economic reforms, deemed “antisocial”, that have been pushed through by a government that is “in bed with the bankers,” writes the daily. Founded in April at a university, Democracia Real Ya “has managed to rally many young people behind the slogan ‘No home, no job, no pension, no fear,'“ explains El País. The paper adds that the movement has published a manifesto expressing the “concern and indignation of citizens trying to cope with the consequences of the economic crisis and the political response to it.” El Mundo emphasises the similarities between the Spanish protest and the “Arab spring”: “The people, worried about political corruption and failure to tackle the economic and social crisis” are marching to “the cry of ‘Don’t vote for them”. “This show of vigour by civil society should force a political class, which is increasingly turned in on itself, to respond”, El Mundo concludes.