European youth in ferment

September 1, 1981

A roiling, restless, dissatisfied movement of students, apprentices, and unemployed youth is sweeping across Western Europe, attacking whatever represents the disciplined, materialistic society created by their parents.

A Monitor series beginning today examines their discontent, directed against deployment of US missiles in Europe as well as insufficient housing and jobs.

The demonstrators are by no means representative of all European youth; the vast majority are working hard at building lives of their own. But the message of the minority is becoming increasingly insistent.

David K. Willis has been travelling through Europe listening to these young people. The first of four reports on what they told him appears today on Page 12.