Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni condemned violence that occurred during demonstrations in several cities on Saturday, while distinguishing the unrest from peaceful protest. In posts on X, she voiced support for law enforcement officers and urged opposition parties to condemn the violence without qualification.
The most prominent scenes described in the source took place in central Milan, including near Piazza del Duomo and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. The Associated Press reported, citing the LaPresse news agency, that 50 demonstrators were detained, including minors, and at least two police officers were injured. Authorities used water cannons to disperse the crowd, according to that account. The report also said stores were looted and windows were broken in the Galleria, a well-known 19th-century arcade.
Meloni said officers had been targeted by people using demonstrations to provoke confrontations and cause disorder. She wrote that citizens, workers and business owners should be able to go about their lives without fear. In a post the previous evening, she said demonstrating is a right but setting cities ablaze is not. She also called on political opponents to make clear that they reject violence and support peaceful mobilization.
The prime minister acknowledged that many people had taken part peacefully, describing participation in demonstrations as an important part of democracy. She nonetheless cited reported incidents in other cities. In Turin, she said, people were stopped while carrying cobblestones and hammers used for breaking windows. In Bologna, disorder led authorities to close the railway station as a precaution, according to her post.
Other accounts reported injuries and arrests beyond Milan. Reuters reported that a police union put the number of officers injured in Bologna at 56. The outlet also reported that Italy’s Interior Ministry said about 100 officers were hurt and around 30 people were arrested in the Turin demonstration. These figures concern separate cities and come from the sources identified in the report.
Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala, a center-left politician, told the Associated Press that the demonstrations’ reasons were understandable, but said violence against police and serious damage to the city could not be justified. His comments acknowledged the protest issues while condemning the conduct reported in Milan.
The demonstrations were organized by the Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro, commonly known as CGIL. The source describes it as Italy’s oldest labor union, with more than 5 million members, and says it is often connected with left-wing political parties. A lawmaker from Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia party, Francesco Filini, separately accused left-wing extremists of organizing destruction. That characterization is an attributed political claim; the supplied material does not independently establish who was responsible for the violence.
Meloni called for a shared rejection of the violence, arguing that hesitation or silence could be taken as justification. The accounts in the source describe events in Italy on Saturday and the prime minister’s responses on Saturday evening and Sunday morning. They do not establish that all demonstrations were violent, and Meloni expressly recognized peaceful participation.
