Italy Adds 500 Soldiers as Protests Spread to Eight Cities

Italy deployed 500 additional soldiers to Milan on Saturday as people held or planned demonstrations against the rising cost of living and Giorgia Meloni’s government in eight cities. The soldiers joined hundreds already stationed in the city, backing about 5,000 police and other law-enforcement personnel. The move followed clashes and looting in Milan the previous weekend.

The newly formed “October 17 Movement,” student federations, grassroots trade unions and anti-war coalitions called the demonstrations. On Instagram, the movement said: “Those who deny our future are truly violent. We distrust this government because we see it as authoritarian.” On Telegram, it said many participants wanted to protest peacefully.

Soldiers, surveillance and the streets

Authorities prepared a wide-ranging security operation. Police said they’d located the administrator of the movement’s Instagram page and were questioning him. Corriere della Sera described him as a 30-year-old Italian-Moroccan freelance journalist and researcher under investigation on suspicion of “inciting crimes.” The Italian news agency Adnkronos reported that police conducted inspections in several cities on Friday and more than 150 in Lombardy on Saturday morning.

The AP reported further inspections and raids on Saturday, as well as drone surveillance, railway-station checks, rapid-response units and online monitoring for potential calls to violence. Demonstrators kept the protest location secret until the last minute. Three meeting points were expected to be announced on social media that afternoon.

Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala supported sending in extra soldiers and said he worried about renewed violence. Security measures would extend beyond the city centre if protesters moved into other neighbourhoods to avoid heavily policed areas. Valter Mazzetti, secretary general of the Fsp police union, said soldiers could provide immediate reinforcements but wouldn’t solve police staffing shortages. Managing demonstrations, he said, required specialised police training.

Defense Minister Guido Crosetto laid out limits on the troops’ public-order role: soldiers had only recently gained permission to use plastic restraint ties, and only around railway stations, and couldn’t carry pepper spray or tasers. More uniforms, apparently, don’t fill the staffing gap.

Who gets arrested, and who gets heard

Milan police said about 2,000 very young protesters took part in last weekend’s violence and looting, many described as “naturalized, second-generation Italians,” alongside foreign nationals. Police arrested 45 people over two days, 34 of them minors. The Al Jazeera account reported 271 arrests on Sunday, 220 involving people under 18. The accounts give different totals.

Lawyer Michele D’Agostino represented demonstrators aged 21 and 15. He said the younger one “didn’t even know the reasons behind the protest; he had just seen it on TikTok and decided to check it out with a friend,” adding: “He was not among the looters, but he did not realise the seriousness of what was happening.” A public prosecutor blamed social media for misleading young people into what he called “insurrectional acts.” Justice Minister Carlo Nordio told Sky TG24 there was a need to “expand the capacity of our youth detention facilities.”

Milan welfare councilor Lamberto Bertolé said investigators needed to learn more about the young people’s backgrounds and motives. “Many young people increasingly lack a sense of belonging and prospects for the future. Part of our society feels excluded, amid social and economic inequalities,” he said.

Prices, protests and official fixes

In Rome, authorities shut luxury shopping streets and increased controls around the Circus Maximus and Piazza del Popolo ahead of demonstrations, including one called by right-wing students. An anti-war march was scheduled to start at Piazza della Repubblica. Its organisers, worried that violent groups might infiltrate, urged people to keep their faces uncovered and hands visible. Right-wing student groups also marched in a demonstration called “Unlock Everything,” opposing recent left-wing student protests.

Earlier in the week, truck drivers set up roadblocks in several regions of southern Italy over soaring fuel prices, leaving markets without supplies for days. On Thursday, the government offered tax breaks and a special fund for farmers and fishermen. The demonstrations put economic pressures and the government’s response on the street. Milan’s answer arrived with soldiers, police checks and online monitoring.