Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is due to chair an emergency security meeting on Monday after cost-of-living protests in Milan escalated into violent clashes. Italian media reported that more than 200 people were arrested over the weekend.
More than 5,000 people gathered in the city. Police responded with tear gas and water cannons after demonstrators, many of them masked, hurled paving stones, bins and chairs at officers. Italian media also reported that people, including police officers, were injured.
Clashes in Milan spread to northern cities
The fighting began on Saturday and carried on into Sunday. According to Ansa, 80% of those detained were minors. Milan’s prosecutor’s office has requested prison sentences for five adults arrested for looting, vandalism and resisting arrest, one Italian news agency reported.
The violence also reached other northern cities. Meloni said people in Turin were detained while “carrying cobblestones and window-breaking hammers”, and a train station in Bologna was shut as a precaution after similar disorder.
Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala said he was worried that the unrest was a “new phenomenon” with roots in events abroad. He described “smashed shop windows, looted stores, and frightened citizens” in the city.
Meloni and opposition leaders urged to condemn rioting
Meloni said on Saturday that “To demonstrate is a right. To lay our cities to waste is not.” She accused “hooligans” of exploiting the protests to “sow chaos”. Meloni, who faces an election next year, has also urged her political rivals to speak out against the rioting.
Writing on X, she told opponents, “Do not be ambiguous about this,” and said condemnation must be “unanimous” because “any hesitation becomes justification”. Democratic Party leader Elly Schlein responded that her party had always condemned violence. She added, according to Italian media, that the rioting should not be used to silence peaceful protesters across the country who are struggling to make a living.
Youth-led protests across Europe turn violent
The disorder followed anti-government protests held by students in several Italian cities on Friday. Rioting has also broken out on the edges of mostly peaceful youth-led protests in France, Spain and Albania.
The unrest in Italy echoed events in France, where hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets and burnt-out cars and smashed glass were seen on Paris streets.
