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Italian police detained 271 young people during unrest in Milan on October 18, when demonstrators smashed shop windows and looted stores, Reuters reported.
Protests and looting in Milan
On the second day of protests over poor public services and rising prices, demonstrators looted shops and damaged property.
Police used tear gas and water cannon after several hundred hooded protesters set fire to rubbish bins and looted stores, including Decathlon and Arc’teryx outlets and a Vodafone phone shop in the city center.
Police said on October 19 that 32 people had been arrested, including 23 minors and 13 foreign nationals. Another 28 people were reported to judicial authorities.
Similar clashes took place on Saturday in northern Italian cities, including Milan, Bologna, Brescia, Bergamo and Turin. Police arrested 28 protesters during those incidents.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni condemned the violence and announced a government meeting on Monday to discuss possible solutions.
Protests in France
The unrest followed demonstrations in neighboring France, where hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets on October 17 in one of the country’s most violent waves of protests in recent years.
French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu reportedly asked officials to introduce partial curfews following the unrest. The Louvre museum in Paris also remained closed because of the protests.
Authorities reported that around 2,000 people had been detained across France. A total of 110 marches took place nationwide, drawing between 550,000 participants, according to official estimates, and around 800,000, according to organizers.
French President Emmanuel Macron also addressed the nation following the country’s largest protests and riots in recent years.
