Thousands of students and workers march across Italy in nationwide strike over living costs and school funding
Students and workers marched in dozens of Italian cities on Friday in a general strike called by the USB union, demanding more school funding, relief from soaring living costs and an end to rising defence spending, in protests that remained largely peaceful.
Thousands of students and workers took to the streets across Italy on Friday in a nationwide day of strikes and protests, demanding more funding for schools, relief from the soaring cost of living and a halt to rising defence spending, in demonstrations that remained largely peaceful despite a heavy police presence.
The action, called as a 24-hour general strike by the grassroots Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) trade union, brought marches to dozens of cities, including Rome, Milan, Turin, Genoa, Bologna and Naples. Organisers said more than 40 cities were involved, while other reports put the figure above 50, and the USB estimated to the AFP news agency that between one million and 1.5 million people took part across the country. The authorities did not publish an official turnout figure, and other reports described tens of thousands on the streets, a reminder that crowd estimates for large protests often vary widely depending on who is counting.
In Rome, thousands of demonstrators set off from the central Termini railway station, accompanied by two tractors and a taxi, and marched past the Colosseum and the economy ministry building, waving flags, unfurling banners and chanting through megaphones. Some protesters said they planned to set up tents near the Colosseum and remain over the weekend, turning a one-day march into a longer visible presence in the heart of the capital.
Students were at the centre of the mobilisation. University student Beatrice Chilelli told AFP that students were at a breaking point, struggling with tuition fees and rents that weigh heavily on their parents, while the OSA student movement had predicted a mobilisation large enough to empty schools. For weeks, students have set up tent camps and occupied schools to press their demands, a movement organisers say has drawn inspiration from similar protests in France and Spain.
The grievances go beyond the classroom. Truck drivers, taxi drivers and farmers joined the marches after weeks of protests over the spike in fuel prices, while teachers, public-sector workers and pensioners marched alongside them. In Genoa, around 15,000 port workers, students and other demonstrators entered the port, linking the protest to opposition to the use of ports for arms shipments and to the deaths of seafarers in conflicts from the Gulf to the Black Sea.
In Milan, protesters marched from the central station onto the city's ring road before ending in front of the Politecnico di Milano university, while in Turin police used a water cannon to push back students and activists who approached security cordons around the prefecture building. In Rome, some rubbish bins were set alight and a small fire was quickly extinguished by other protesters, who were keen to avoid a repeat of the violence that has marred recent demonstrations elsewhere in Europe.
The heavy security reflected what happened two weeks earlier. After clashes between young people and police in Milan over the weekend of 17-18 October, in which shops were looted and property damaged, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's government toughened laws on public gatherings and eased rules on detaining minors. On Friday, riot police blocked off streets in several cities and the interior ministry said preventative arrests had been made ahead of the marches, but apart from isolated skirmishes the day passed without major clashes.
The government has already moved, in part, to address one of the drivers of anger. Last week it agreed a 175.2-million-euro aid package for truck drivers, farmers and fishermen hit by soaring fuel prices linked to the war in the Middle East, but protesters said the help did not go far enough and did not address the wider squeeze on wages, rents, utility bills and basic necessities. Their slogans also targeted rearmament, with crowds in Rome singing for more houses rather than bombs and waving Palestinian flags as they marched.
The protests also sit within a wider European pattern. In France, teachers and students began demonstrating in late September over education investment and working conditions, and in Spain similar student-led actions have gathered pace, while dockworkers across Europe staged their own coordinated action on Friday against the use of commercial ports for military shipments. Italy's organisers have framed their movement as part of that continental wave rather than a single national dispute.
What happens next will depend on whether Friday's turnout translates into sustained pressure. The government is currently debating its draft 2027 budget, which includes measures aimed at young people and families, and protesters have signalled that a weekend camp in Rome and further mobilisations could follow if their demands on school funding, housing support and the cost of living are not met. For now, the day ended as it had largely proceeded: large, loud and, by the standards of recent weeks, peaceful.
