Since the end of May, anti-government protests, born from opposition to the Trump family’s construction projects on an Albanian island, have drawn thousands of Albanians.
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Among them is a large segment of Generation Z, angry at a government they consider failed and corrupt.
In the evening, the boulevard near Prime Minister Edi Rama’s office is closed to vehicles. Elderly people sit waiting on plastic chairs, a small platform is set up in front of the building for protesters to deliver speeches, while vendors of Albanian flags stroll through the crowd. This scene has become routine. It was the same on Saturday, July 11.
For the forty-third consecutive night, Tirana was the stage for protests sparked by opposition to Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump’s building plans on Sazan Island and the Zvërnec coastline, a coastal zone in the south of the country.
Beyond this project, thousands of participants, under the slogan “Albania is not for sale,” denounce a double-standard development: tourism is growing at breakneck speed while basic needs like affordable housing, an efficient education system and quality healthcare remain unmet.
All protesters oppose the failure of public institutions, widespread corruption and economic growth that, they say, benefits only a tiny oligarchy.
Though the movement represents an unprecedented consensus, Generation Z is especially prominent. Young people aged 18 to 29 accuse the regime embodied by Prime Minister Edi Rama, who in turn accuses the protesters of being part of “a hybrid war orchestrated from abroad.”
Five of them explain why they joined this unprecedented protest, dubbed the “Flamingo Revolution.”
Erta Kurta: “Now my parents are proud of me.”Erta Kurta, 22, became an activist after watching a video circulating on social media at the end of May. It showed private security guards forcefully shoving residents protesting the placement of construction machinery on the beaches targeted by the Trump family on Sazan Island.
Since then, the young woman never parts with her pink flamingo-shaped bag. The bird, threatened by the construction projects, has become the movement’s symbol.
The architecture student at Polis University in Tirana is calling for better public services.
She recalls a hospital stay she describes as “traumatic” when she was 13 due to a lung infection. She speaks of poor healthcare quality and corruption among the staff, “from the nurse all the way to the doctor.” The experience convinced her parents to send her to Turkey for treatment.
Growing up as the eldest of several sisters, she remembers listening to her parents’ accounts of being “oppressed” during the years of communist dictatorship (1946–1991).
For that reason, Ertë’s sudden turn to activism initially terrified her parents.
“They were horrified. They said I had become the family revolutionary and my mother kept repeating that the situation wasn’t that dramatic.”
Over time, however, her mother, a teacher, and her father, a businessman, came to accept her commitment.
“Now they are proud of me,” she says softly.
Jurgen Shpërdhea: “We have to make our voice heard with diplomacy.”Jurgen Shpërdhea, 29, says he was the first to shout “Revolution!” It happened on June 3.Although the movement has no leader, Jurgen has become one of its most recognizable voices.
Despite quickly forming friendships in Tirana, he still feels like an outsider. He is from Griza, a village near the Adriatic Sea, where his parents tend the family farm alongside their jobs as a firefighter and a cleaner.
“There I had my community, my family, my cousins,” he recalls.
But, like many other areas, the village has been emptied of its young people.
“At weddings and funerals there’s no one left,” he says sadly.
He laments the lack of prospects that forces young people to emigrate.
In Albania, more than 25% of 15–24-year-olds were unemployed in 2025, according to the World Bank, compared to 18.9% in France.
Jurgen also worries when he sees natural areas turned into tourist resorts.
“My mother’s family is from Dhërmi, a village near Mount Çika. I cannot imagine that place one day being destroyed to build luxury complexes.”
He has adopted the protest slogan “Albania is not for sale,” referring to the 2024 and 2025 laws that ease strategic investments, especially in natural areas.
Though angry, the self-employed digital marketer remains a pacifist.
He believes Generation Z is “less violent” than previous generations.“We have to make our voice heard with diplomacy.”
Flavia Osmani: “We want to start everything from scratch.”Flavia Osmani, 26, had long been waiting for such a mobilization.
“We want to start everything from scratch, that’s why we call it a revolution,” says the activist, who is involved with the left-wing Bashkë party.
She works as a software engineer for an Italian company and studied at Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris.During her time in France, she met trade union activists, took part in May 1 protests and joined political discussions.
After returning to Albania, she set a clear goal: “To be politically useful here.”
Her voice is hoarse from shouting into a megaphone at the protests.
Flavia thinks her generation lives worse than their parents’.
According to her, her parents had: more affordable rent; jobs that matched their studies.
Her father runs a small auto parts business while her mother works as a school assistant.
Today, Flavia says, everything is controlled by: “a handful of oligarchs.”
She demands that the responsible leaders be punished and that the political class be renewed.
“There are plenty of young people who are ready.”
Aslan and Andi Dogjani: “Generation Z is on a mission.”Aslan and Andi Dogjani, 23 and 21, are children of social media.
It was through their phones that they first learned about the protest movement.
“I saw a lot of posts on TikTok and Instagram,” says Andi, a business student at Epoka University. “Girls were writing: ‘Come to the protest’.”
Since then, the two brothers have not missed a single protest.
Their father, a lawyer, and their mother, a homemaker, supported them from the start.
“They taught us to be idealists,” says Andi.
Both are students and dream of building their lives in Albania.
“With the people we love,” adds Aslan, a law student at the European University of Tirana.
Still, the departure of his cousins for other European countries and the United States saddens him.
“Each of them I miss terribly.”
Together, they criticize a society that, they say: “rejects people who are not corrupt.”
They believe corruption blocks their future from university, where, they say, good grades can be bought and merit is not always valued.
Although protest attendance had dwindled about six weeks after the movement began, the two students are hoping for a revival when the new academic year starts.
Aslan is convinced that: “Generation Z is on a mission.”
