Italy went through one of its biggest days of street protest in years on Friday. The walkout, organised by the rank-and-file union USB together with Cobas, CUB and several smaller groups, emptied classrooms, slowed public transport and sent marchers into the squares of roughly 70 cities under the rallying cry “Shut everything down”.
USB claimed that well over a million Italians joined in, perhaps 1.5 million. The authorities offered no count of their own, and the education ministry’s early figures suggested only about 7.6 per cent of school staff walked out. Yet the mix of people on the streets was striking: truck and taxi drivers angry about fuel prices, farmers, pensioners, housing campaigners and dock workers protesting arms shipments alongside colleagues in some 20 countries.
Teenagers and undergraduates were the loudest voices of the day. The Roman march, headed by a pair of farm vehicles and a cab, set off from Termini and snaked past the ancient arena to the finance ministry. One 16-year-old told AFP she was tired of crumbling buildings and wanted no more “mice in our schools”, while a university student said a single room in the capital can now cost 1,200 euros a month.
Most of the day passed calmly. Close to the Colosseum, though, a breakaway group threw up barricades, set bins alight and hurled bottles, and police detained eight people. Riot units closed the piazzas in front of the lower house and the prime minister’s offices just in case. In Milan, where looting followed a protest two weeks ago, organisers steered the march away from the centre.
The wave draws inspiration from student movements in France and Spain, and its leaders want more. Cobas spokesperson Piero Bernocchi said the unions would soon decide how to continue, a further general strike included. With a national election due next year, the pressure on Meloni’s coalition is unlikely to fade quickly.
