On 25 September 2025, thousands of mostly young people — widely described as a Gen-Z-led movement — poured into the streets of Antananarivo to denounce chronic power cuts and water shortages that have worsened this year. What began with placards demanding “water and electricity are basic human rights” quickly escalated into marches that confronted police lines and blocked major arteries of the capital. The demographics of the movement, the slogans, and the speed of online mobilization highlighted how Madagascar’s youngest generation is increasingly challenging the state.
The demands were both immediate and systemic: reliable electricity, access to water, and accountability from the state and its utility companies. Protesters carried yellow jerrycans, a symbol of daily hardship, and used chants such as “We need water, we need electricity” to underline their grievances. By framing their struggle as a governance issue rather than simply a technical failure, they pushed service delivery into the realm of political legitimacy, signaling that development promises unfulfilled are now met with public resistance.
Violence broke out in several neighborhoods when security forces deployed tear gas and rubber bullets, while some groups set fire to infrastructure, including newly built cable-car stations crippled by the outages. The government reacted with a dusk-to-dawn curfew, justified by General Angelo Ravelonarivo as necessary “to protect the population and their belongings.” Yet this heavy-handed response reinforced the sense among youth that authorities were more focused on control than solutions.
Crucially, Madagascar’s Gen Z protesters are not acting in isolation. They are inspired by global youth movements — Nigeria’s #EndSARS in 2020, Senegal’s 2024–2025 youth-led uprisings, Sudan’s resistance committees, and France’s September 2025 protests against austerity. In Asia, parallels are drawn with Nepal’s 2025 student-led demonstrations over corruption, unemployment, and governance failures, where thousands of young Nepalis marched under the banner of “enough is enough.” Malagasy youth referenced these movements online, showing that their struggle is part of a wider generational awakening that transcends borders.
These demonstrations in Madagascar could follow multiple trajectories. In the short term, the state may rely on policing and temporary fixes, such as rented generators, to calm unrest. In the medium term, pressure could lead to inquiries, utility reforms, or political reshuffling. But in the long term, if youth remain mobilized and globally connected, the protests may force deeper reforms in governance, accountability, and development policy — outcomes that elites may resist but cannot ignore if legitimacy continues to erode.
Ultimately, the protests reveal that Gen Z is not only a domestic force but part of a transnational movement of young people redefining politics in the 21st century. From Antananarivo to Kathmandu, Lagos to Dakar, and Paris to Khartoum, the same message resonates: access to services, jobs, and justice is a right, and governments that fail to deliver risk facing the full weight of a digitally empowered generation.
