According to the Daily Telegraph’s Bruno Waterfield, worries about possible social unrest are rising up the agenda in Brussels:

A senior EU source has told The Daily Telegraph that a March summit of European leaders will examine the increasing unrest as unemployment rises across Europe and cuts to social programmes bite. “There are concerns. The EU shares them. It is one of the major challenges for the Spring Council,” said the senior European source. French President Nicolas Sarkozy first raised the spectre of “May 1968″ protests spreading across Europe at a Brussels Council in December and “intensive sharing of information” is now under way among a key group of EU governments, including France and Germany.

May ‘68 type disturbances in western Europe still look unlikely, with two possible exceptions; Greece (which has already seen its share of rioting in recent months) and, of course, France itself, a country with a long tradition of street protest made potentially all the more dangerous by the social and demographic changes that lay at the root of so much trouble a year or so ago. Sarkozy is right to be concerned.