Italy Weighs Tougher Security After Milan Unrest

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is expected to approve emergency security measures following violent clashes during protests over rising costs in Milan. According to the Milan newspaper Corriere della Sera, the proposed measures could include extending preventative detention to minors, restricting group gatherings and introducing a crackdown on youth gangs. The measures may be approved as part of a decree law as early as Tuesday, though no official announcement had been made at the time of reporting. Meloni chaired an emergency security meeting on Monday. More than 5,000 people gathered in Milan over the weekend. While many protests were peaceful, some participants—many wearing masks—threw paving stones, bins and chairs at police, who responded with tear gas and water cannons. Shops were looted and property set alight; some central Milan businesses closed early and boarded up their windows. Police said 271 people were taken to stations on Sunday: 32 were arrested, including 23 minors, and another 28 were reported to judicial authorities. Italian media said people, including officers, were injured. The article also cites a separate report that more than 250 people were detained over the weekend, 80% of them minors. Disorder was reported in other northern Italian cities. Meloni said people were detained in Turin carrying cobblestones and window-breaking hammers, and Bologna closed a train station as a precaution. She defended the right to demonstrate but said violence and destruction were unacceptable, and urged opposition parties to condemn the rioting. Democratic Party leader Elly Schlein said her party had condemned violence, while warning against using the unrest to silence peaceful protesters struggling with the cost of living. Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala described the violence as a possible new phenomenon linked to an international context. The article notes similar disorder on the sidelines of mostly peaceful youth-led protests in France, Spain and Albania, following student protests in Italian cities and widespread unrest in neighbouring France.

France 24 reports that youths and police clashed in Milan for a second consecutive day on Sunday during protests over the cost of living. At least 200 people were arrested, and the headline characterizes most of those arrested as minors. The article says the protests involved violence and notes that the scenes evoked chaos and looting in Paris, though it gives no further details about the comparison or the events there. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called a security meeting for Monday to address the violence. The report is attributed to France 24 correspondent Seema Gupta, reporting from Rome. Its focus is the clashes, arrests and government response; the supplied text does not provide protesters’ demands, police or government explanations, details of injuries or damage, or outcomes from the planned meeting. The article page also includes a caption identifying a photograph of police confronting demonstrators associated with “Italia in Piazza” in Milan on Saturday, October 17, 2026. The video report was issued on October 19, 2026. The page’s headline emphasizes that most arrested were minors, while its short description specifies at least 200 arrests overall.

Italian police detained 271 young people in Milan on Oct. 18 after protests over poor public services and the rising cost of living escalated into clashes, looting and property damage. Police said 32 of those taken to stations were arrested, including 23 minors and 13 foreign nationals, and another 28 people were reported to judicial authorities. The article does not clarify whether these categories overlap. Footage showed riot police using tear gas and water cannon as several hundred hooded demonstrators set rubbish bins on fire and looted city-centre shops, including Decathlon, Arc’teryx and a Vodafone phone store. The Milan unrest was the second day of demonstrations. Similar clashes had taken place on Oct. 17 in northern Italian cities including Milan, Bologna, Brescia, Bergamo and Turin; a police report said 28 protesters were arrested in those disturbances. The protests were part of wider discontent over living costs and the quality of public services, and the article compares them with demonstrations in neighbouring France. There, hundreds of thousands of people protested on Oct. 17, in what the article describes as some of the country’s most violent demonstrations in years. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni condemned the violence. With an election due in 2027, she announced a government meeting for Oct. 19 to discuss how to respond to the situation. The report focuses on the scale of detentions and arrests, the damage and clashes in Milan, the broader pattern of unrest in Italy and France, and the government’s planned response.