Governments confronting Europe’s unrest are already inside the relationships producing it. Every announcement, delay and refusal changes what people expect from the next encounter. French students have protested staffing shortages and deteriorating school conditions; Belgian workers have struck against planned budget cuts (Reuters, 2026a; 2026b). These grievances recur while their causes remain. An unanswered complaint becomes evidence of indifference; reassurance unsupported by delivery weakens the next reassurance. Policy must trace these sequences across services, political speech and public responses. Who receives a complaint, who can act on it, and what happens while people wait determine how dissatisfaction develops. A material failure acquires political persistence through the encounters that keep renewing its significance. Government acts within that process, including when its own language turns criticism into another confrontation.
As connections multiply, encounters organised around familiar enemies narrow the explanations that receive a response. Opposing political positions become mutually sustaining. Each confrontation supplies material through which the other side renews its urgency. Advertising-funded platforms give this recurrence commercial value: returning attention creates further opportunities to sell advertising. Advertising supplied approximately 98% of Meta’s 2025 revenue (Meta Platforms, 2026). An audit involving US Twitter users illustrates a mechanism of amplification: personalised rankings selected more political hostility than a chronological selection from accounts users followed (Milli et al., 2025). Where antagonism keeps people watching and returning, volatility becomes profitable. Good intentions leave that incentive intact. Governments must examine which combinations of recommendation, paid promotion and political recognition reward escalation, how those rewards differ across audiences, and which choices make the next confrontation more likely.
This examination needs enforceable powers and independent evidence. The EU’s Digital Services Act already provides duties for designated large services concerning systemic risks, independent audits, researcher access and recommendation options that do not rely on profiling (European Commission, 2026). Governments should use these tools to assess the relationships between platform design and repeated escalation. Regulators should require comparative testing of recommendation modes and proposed limits on automated mass resharing, with results showing both reduced harms and effects on legitimate participation. Evaluation must follow where participation goes after a change, including whether the same escalation reappears elsewhere. Oversight must preserve public challenge, published criteria and routes of appeal, including against government decisions. Political authorities must also remain answerable for the hostility their own interventions amplify. The task is to change the consequences attached to escalation while sustaining people’s capacity to organise, disagree and demand redress.
Governments must also establish a credible rhythm between immediate recognition and slower delivery. Acknowledge grievances promptly, identify the responsible institution, publish milestones and return publicly to what changed. France’s pledge of 3,000 teachers provides a concrete test: whether staff reach schools, which shortages remain, and how those results alter subsequent demands (Reuters, 2026a). Officials can document delivery, unions can check it against classroom experience, and journalists can revisit the evidence after the announcement’s excitement passes. Protect time for scrutiny and revision through scheduled decisions and review points, while keeping urgent assistance responsive. Material improvements become politically consequential through these repeated opportunities to test promises and revise expectations. Success means better services, correctable decisions and sustained public influence. Democratic stability grows through dependable ways of living with disagreement, so that belonging and authority acquire sources of renewal beyond the next crisis.
References
European Commission (2026) ‘DSA: Very large online platforms and search engines’, updated 19 May.
Meta Platforms (2026) Annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended 31 December 2025.
Milli, S., Carroll, M., Wang, Y., Pandey, S., Zhao, S. and Dragan, A.D. (2025) ‘Engagement, user satisfaction, and the amplification of divisive content on social media’, PNAS Nexus, 4(3), pgaf062.
Reuters (2026a) ‘French student protesters vow to keep up their fight after scoring first win’, 9 October.
Reuters (2026b) ‘Belgium strike partly shuts public sector as budget deal delayed’, 12 October.
