Forecast: Spain's protests to 'go global'

KINGSTON, N.Y., May 27 (UPI) -- Growing unrest in Spain will spread throughout Europe this summer and "go global" by winter, a U.S. trends forecaster said in an interview posted Friday.

"Young people have wised up. They know the score," Trends Research Institute Director Gerald Celente told King World News. "Those are the people that are ahead of all of these revolutions."

Inspired by the revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests taking place in the Middle East and North Africa, tens of thousands of young Spaniards, expressing distress over 45 percent youth unemployment and severe government-imposed austerity measures, have taken over central squares in 60 cities -- including Madrid's busy Puerta del Sol -- seeking to overhaul Spain's socioeconomic and political systems, which they allege favor special interests, especially financial institutions.

Like the so-called Arab Spring, the growing Spanish movements are spread via social media networks and led in the streets by the young.

And "they're not leaving the streets," Celente told King World News, because "when you lose everything and have nothing left to lose, you lose it."

"These revolutions are going to spread through the summer in Europe, and by the winter it's going to go global," he said.

A French youth-led group plans a large demonstration in Paris this weekend in solidarity with Spain's protesters, known as "los indignados," or "the outraged." The French protest would follow Friday's close of the Group of Eight summit of world leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama, in the French seaside resort town of Deauville.

Another Spanish-style uprising could emerge in neighboring Portugal next week, ahead of a June 5 snap election, The New York Times said.

Celente said Europe's Internet-savvy youth are "getting everyone out to join them because they know now that if they don't fight against the machine, the machine is going to grind them up."