Italian police clash with protesters in Milan and Bologna
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People gathering at the square in front of the Gothic cathedral in Milan to protest the cost of living on Oct 17.
PHOTO: EPA
MILAN – Italian police fired tear gas on Oct 17 after coming under attack from protesters throwing stones and other objects in clashes in the square in front of Milan’s Gothic cathedral, Italian media reported, while there were also clashes in the city of Bologna following protests over the cost of living.
Police in Bologna used a water cannon to try to disperse crowds and made seven arrests after the protest became violent, the ANSA news agency reported.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, facing an election next year, condemned the violence.
“Demonstrating is a right. Turning our cities into battlegrounds is not,” she said on X.
In Milan, police in riot gear tried to clear hooded protesters from the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, the luxury shopping arcade which is on one side of the cathedral square, as groups broke away from a protest over the high cost of living.
Shops pulled down their shutters and tourists fled the central area. The central Duomo (Cathedral) metro station was closed during the clashes in which several people were reported injured, and a number of arrests made, according to Italian media reports.
Police in the northern Italian city of Bologna used water cannon to disperse crowds and made seven arrests after another protest turned violent, ANSA reported.
The clashes had echoes of the violence in neighbouring France where tens of thousands of people angered by rising costs and declining public services took to the streets on Oct 17 in some of the country’s most violent protests in years. REUTERS