Protesters clashed with police across Italy on Saturday and even briefly stormed the Colosseum in Rome; however, Giorgia Meloni’s government claimed that widespread disorder was prevented by the expanded powers granted to police, which enabled preventative detention and led to the arrest of one of the chief architects of the Milan riots. The French-inspired protests in Italy continued on Saturday, yet the movements appeared to be less organised or capable of violence and destruction, with police taking a “decapitation” strategy of detaining top figures believed to be behind previous unrest.
According to Rome’s Il Messaggero newspaper, the ultra-left anarchist groups previously expected to stage insurrectionist riots were largely prevented from demonstrating. However, a loose-knit group of various left-wing student movements, described as “but only peripherally, to the insurrectionist movement” managed to stage a protest of around 2,500 people. Although police largely prevented looting or significant damage to public or private property, around 500 protesters skirted law enforcement and breached the Colosseum, the 2,000-year-old amphitheatre in the heart of the Italian capital.
