Clashes across Italy: Two officers hurt, at least 40 arrested as cost-of-living protest turns violent in Milan

Two police officers were injured, and at least 40 protesters were arrested in Milan on Saturday as a demonstration against the high cost of living turned violent, with clashes also breaking out in Bologna and Turin, according to Italian media reports and a police union.

According to Domenico Pianese, general secretary of the Coisp police union, violent groups attacked officers with firecrackers, stones and barriers in Piazza Duomo.

The unrest began in the early afternoon, when an "Italia in Piazza" march of more than 5,000 people stalled near Via San Tomaso, and protesters threw a hail of stones at police in Via Broletto. Officers charged, the march split in two, and bus shelters and the upper-floor windows of historic buildings were damaged.

Several hundred protesters later regrouped on the cathedral forecourt and attacked the police line three times. Officers retreated, and the protesters vandalized and looted a Carabinieri vehicle and damaged armored vans before holding the square and the equestrian monument behind barricades.

Police retook it with tear gas and a water cannon, and the last groups retreated toward Piazza San Babila, throwing stones at barricades made from café tables.

Riot police also tried to clear hooded protesters from the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, the luxury arcade beside the cathedral square. Shops pulled down their shutters, tourists fled, and the Duomo metro station was closed. A Footlocker was looted, a Nike store was damaged before the demonstration began, and La Rinascente was also damaged.

Many of the protesters were young people dressed in black, carrying no flags or political symbols and described in the reports as teenagers from the suburbs. Clashes were continuing in Via Mazzini.

In Bologna, clashes broke out outside the central station, where hooded youths threw stones in Piazza Medaglie d'Oro. Police used a water cannon and tear gas, and dozens of bike-share Mobikes were thrown to the ground. Seven people were arrested.

In Turin, very young demonstrators threw stones and bottles at officers guarding Porta Nuova station, and police fired tear gas to disperse them.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who faces an election next year, condemned the violence. "Demonstrating is a right. Turning our cities into battlegrounds is not," she wrote on X.

The clashes echoed violence in neighboring France, where tens of thousands of people angry about rising costs and declining public services took part in some of the country's most violent protests in years. Smaller demonstrations also took place in Belgium and in Portugal, where housing prices have doubled since 2017, while Albanian students marched for a fifth day demanding that Prime Minister Edi Rama step down.