Jean Monnet Professor of EU Law @HECParis | Democracy Fellow @Harvard | Founder @TheGoodLobby @EurJRR | Formerly @EUCourtPress | #YGL #EYL
Europe
Joined January 2009
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Europe doesn't need to become America to succeed:
Supporters of deregulation want Europe to be more like the US. But that would serve only American interests.
My latest in @guardian today
theguardian.com/commentisfre…
Alberto Alemanno 🇪🇺 retweeted
Youth protests from France are spreading across Europe, with demonstrations in Portugal, Belgium, Italy, Greece, Spain, Albania, Germany and Austria.
Alberto Alemanno, professor at HEC Paris, cites underfunded education, rising costs and uncertain graduate prospects.
Wow.
Zuckerberg has agreed to stay in California for 8 years and is reportedly preparing to pay the state's 5% billionaire tax.
If confirmed, it cuts against the "billionaires will all flee" story, while other billionaires - including the Rhine Group co-chair - funds the opposition to the prop theguardian.com/news/ng-inte…
Alberto Alemanno 🇪🇺 retweeted
A violent and coordinated youth uprising?
Listen to each country’s protesters, not the voices telling us Europe is ungovernable. That’s exactly the picture Europe’s enemies want to paint.
Read my latest for @guardian @guardianopinion
theguardian.com/commentisfre…
A violent and coordinated youth uprising?
Listen to each country’s protesters, not the voices telling us Europe is ungovernable. That’s exactly the picture Europe’s enemies want to paint.
Read my latest for @guardian @guardianopinion
theguardian.com/commentisfre…
“This is the most powerful warning from Europe’s angry youth today, in France and across the continent,” the policy analyst Alberto Alemanno said.
The framing stands in sharp contrast to the many rightwing and far-right voices who have sought to exploit the violence in France and Italy, linking it without evidence to migration while brushing over protesters’ wider demands.
theguardian.com/world/2026/o…
No evidence links the protests to migrants. Yet the right, and not only the hard right, can't resist jumping to conclusions to advance its agenda.
Weakening Europe and its democracy is exactly what Trump, Putin and Xi want. Doing their work for them is shameful and irresponsible.
Must-read by @jonhenley 👇
theguardian.com/world/2026/o…
Alberto Alemanno 🇪🇺 retweeted
As expected, the youth protests got hijacked by third countries that dislike the EU, what it stands for and democracy
When the legitimate exercise of freedom of expression get weaponised to weaken EUropean democracies
According to security officials, pro-Russian and far-right social media accounts linked to previous disinformation campaigns have spread violent videos in an attempt to sow more chaos ft.trib.al/t4nxjpO
ALT A protester wrapped in a French national flag stands in front of Lyon's tourism office set on fire during a demonstration in Lyon, southeastern France. Text on image reads: EU probes pro-Kremlin disinformation around French riots (Credit: Jeff Pachoud/AFP/Getty Images)
The EU and its governments have never been so inaccessibile and disinterested in civil society’s input.
So, how to remedy that?
The EU and its governments have never been so inaccessibile and disinterested in civil society.
So, how to remedy that?
By convening a conference, as if this alone would remedy the situation.
Curious to hear @EUCssrMcGrath’s rationale for the “event”
consilium.europa.eu/en/event…
Curious to hear @EUCssrMcGrath’s rationale for the “event”
consilium.europa.eu/en/event…
As expected, the youth protests got hijacked by third countries that dislike the EU, what it stands for and democracy
When the legitimate exercise of freedom of expression get weaponised to weaken EUropean democracies
According to security officials, pro-Russian and far-right social media accounts linked to previous disinformation campaigns have spread violent videos in an attempt to sow more chaos ft.trib.al/t4nxjpO
ALT A protester wrapped in a French national flag stands in front of Lyon's tourism office set on fire during a demonstration in Lyon, southeastern France. Text on image reads: EU probes pro-Kremlin disinformation around French riots (Credit: Jeff Pachoud/AFP/Getty Images)
Alberto Alemanno 🇪🇺 retweeted
The youth protests are as legitimate as their concerns.
But Europe's enemies are already amplifying and exploiting them, whatever their merits.
The real test for Europe - and its political party system - is to answer the grievances before others weaponise them. @StevenErlanger
An excellent analysis of where Europe is right now.
It’s Not Just France. Europe’s Political Center Is Crumbling. nytimes.com/2026/10/20/world… via @NYTimes
The youth protests are as legitimate as their concerns.
But Europe's enemies are already amplifying and exploiting them, whatever their merits.
The real test for Europe - and its political party system - is to answer the grievances before others weaponise them. @StevenErlanger
An excellent analysis of where Europe is right now.
It’s Not Just France. Europe’s Political Center Is Crumbling. nytimes.com/2026/10/20/world… via @NYTimes
It’s not just France. Europe’s political centre is crumbling, and its complicity with the hard right is a big part of why.
Something I’ve been arguing for a long time. Good to see it in the @nytimes, citing my Substack
nytimes.com/2026/10/20/world…
BBC pressing @FabriceLeggeri on what Le Pen would do differently to handle the protests:
@RNational_off wants “More arrests” and “Solidarity with the police”
How would you address affordability concerns?
“Less VAT”
“Reduce taxation and fraud”
BBC journalist wasn’t impressed
Europe's youth protests are NOT one movement, but they share some grievances and tactics - through a subtle process of imitation fuelled by media coverage.
This narrative of a pan EU revolt fueled by the hard right and hard left is deeply misleading as claims that these protests are migration related.
Interview with @CNN
Alberto Alemanno 🇪🇺 retweeted
Wrong:
EU Member States and the EU institutions themselves are required to protect and promote EU values as enshrined in Article 2 TEU - including democracy, rule of law and human dignity, as recently held by the EU Court of Justice in Commission vs Hungary (values judgment).
This applies to France too, Madame.
Alberto Alemanno 🇪🇺 retweeted
Remarkable:
Mr Kurz, the former, failed Austrian chancellor whose career now runs through Silicon Valley money lectures Europeans on the "consequences" for our continent, with no evidence, and a convenient call for panic.
Funny how the more Europe is described as burning, the more it needs "solutions" from Silicon Valley's friends.
For more than a week, we have seen increasingly disturbing images from France and elsewhere in Europe: burning town halls, looted shops and brutal violence.
What has been portrayed as “student protests” increasingly resembles scenes from a civil war.
Behind the mob, there is an uncanny alliance: well-organised left-wing extremists and political Islam. Two movements that could hardly be more different - but united in their rejection of our free and open society.
Both are enemies of the Enlightenment. The far left likes to present itself as its guardian. Yet it marches side by side with those who reject freedom of speech and everything a liberal society stands for.
Beyond the violence itself, what is most shocking is the unwillingness to acknowledge what is happening, or even the apparent attempt to conceal the truth by many.
The violence we are witnessing has nothing to do with legitimate student protest. To me, these scenes reflect the consequences of nearly two decades of failed migration policy.
Unless we change course immediately, we risk seeing the same scenes soon in Berlin, Vienna and Munich.
For years, Hungary and other Central European countries have faced harsh criticism from their Western European neighbours over their approach to migration. Today, Budapest, Warsaw and Prague stand out as islands of calm.
Wrong:
EU Member States and the EU institutions themselves are required to protect and promote EU values as enshrined in Article 2 TEU - including democracy, rule of law and human dignity, as recently held by the EU Court of Justice in Commission vs Hungary (values judgment).
This applies to France too, Madame.