European Popular Front News and Statements
In Defense of the Western European Protests
Germany Across Germany, school students are walking out of class and into the streets. Their target is the Wehrdienst-Modernisierungsgesetz , in force since January 2026: every 18-year-old now receives a Bundeswehr questionnaire, young men born in 2008 or later must report for compulsory military screening, and although service remains voluntary, the law already contains the mechanism; a so-called Bedarfswehrpflicht ; to switch on conscription by a further vote of the Bundestag if not enough volunteers come forward. The students are right to see the screening for what it is: the infrastructure of full mandatory conscription, built in advance and waiting for a political decision. The official justification is security in a dangerous world. But we should ask whose security is being defended, and who pays for it. The same state that discovers hundreds of billions for armaments, exempted from the debt brake, tells working families there is no money for affordable housing, crumbling s...