From top left, clockwise: Piazza Duomo in Milan during the unrest (17 October 2026); police officers deployed in Turin during riots (16 October); truckers’ protest in Sicily (18 October); Bologna during the clashes (17 October).
The 2026 Italian unrest refers to a series of protests, demonstrations, strikes, and clashes in Italy beginning on 16 October 2026. The unrest involved student movements and other protesters expressing discontent over the cost of living, rising fuel prices, education policies, and public spending.
The unrest emerged amid concerns about the rising cost of living, higher fuel prices, and conditions within the education sector. Student movements criticized the policies of the government led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, calling for increased investment in public education and opposing military spending.
On 16 October, student demonstrations associated with the slogan “No Meloni Day” took place in several Italian cities. The same slogan used during the 2025 Italian general strikes and protests for Gaza by some groups of protesters.
Timeline
16 October
On 16 October, student demonstrations took place across Italy under the slogan “No Meloni Day”. The protests focused on the condition of school buildings, education funding, military expenditure, immigration policies affecting schools, and solidarity with French students.
In Turin, demonstrators threw eggs at police and clashes were reported between some protesters and officers. In Rome, some demonstrators threw firecrackers near the Ministry of Education, while flags of the United States and Israel were burned during a march. In Pisa, students at the Scuola Normale Superiore disrupted an academic-year opening ceremony.
The demonstrations coincided with climate mobilizations involving Fridays for Future and with a school-sector strike. Police unions reported that officers had been injured during confrontations in Rome and Turin. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni condemned the violence while the government defended the police response.
At the same time, a separate wave of protests by truck drivers and farmers spread across southern Italy in response to rising diesel prices and production costs. In Calabria, the transport stoppage organized by Fedralog began, with approximately 15 protest sites established near major roads and transport hubs, including the port of Gioia Tauro and the area around Lamezia Terme airport. In Sicily, the Comitato Trasporto Siciliano began a five-day stoppage of freight transport services.
In Puglia, agricultural and transport protests had already been underway for several days. In the province of Foggia, farmers, olive growers and truck drivers continued their demonstrations. A convoy of approximately 500 lorries travelled along the SS379 between Brindisi and Bari, while farmers and agricultural workers participated in demonstrations in Cerignola and other towns. Olive growers also protested in Corato.
The stoppages caused traffic disruption and contributed to fuel shortages at service stations in parts of southern Italy. The government called for the restoration of normal goods distribution and sought discussions with transport representatives.
17 October
A broken shopfront in Milan, Lombardy, due to the riots
On 17 October, demonstrations against the cost of living and other social issues continued, with serious clashes reported in Milan and Bologna.
In central Milan, a demonstration that had initially proceeded peacefully escalated after groups of masked protesters broke away from the march. Some threw stones and other objects at riot police, damaged shop windows and set fire to makeshift barricades. Police used tear gas to disperse demonstrators in the area around Piazza del Duomo and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. Shops closed and the Duomo metro station was temporarily shut during the clashes.
In Bologna, police used water cannons to disperse demonstrators after a protest turned violent. Reuters, citing Italian media reports, reported seven arrests in the city. Several people were reported injured in the incidents in Milan, and arrests were also made there.
The unrest occurred alongside wider protests over rising living costs and deteriorating public services. The incidents intensified debate about the distinction between peaceful demonstrations and acts of violence. Meanwhile, the protests by truck drivers and farmers continued across Calabria, Puglia, Basilicata and Sicily. In Calabria, lorries remained stationed along the SS18 coastal road and at approximately 15 protest sites. Although the vehicles caused delays, reports indicated that the demonstrations did not consistently involve complete road closures.
In Puglia, farmers, olive growers and transport workers maintained a protest site near the Poggio Imperiale motorway junction in the province of Foggia. Some participants discussed taking their demonstrations to Rome to draw the national government's attention to their demands.
In Basilicata, agricultural groups, including the Comitato Agricolo Materano and the national association Granosalus, supported demonstrations concerning rising production costs, falling prices received by farmers and reductions in agricultural support payments. Tractors and lorries also remained mobilized near Scanzano Jonico.
The agricultural protests overlapped with the truckers' campaign against diesel prices, although the two movements had distinct demands. Agricultural organizations also announced further demonstrations for the following week, including planned actions in L'Aquila and Rome.
18 October
On 18 October, further clashes took place in Milan during demonstrations against rising living costs and inadequate public services.
According to Reuters, several hundred hooded demonstrators broke shop windows and set rubbish bins on fire near Piazza del Duomo. Police in riot gear responded with tear gas and water cannons. More than 60 people were taken to police stations for further checks.
A police report cited by Reuters stated that 28 people had been arrested following the clashes on Saturday, 17 October, in Milan, Bologna, Brescia, Bergamo and Turin. These figures refer to the previous day's incidents, rather than arrests made exclusively on Sunday.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni condemned the violence and announced a government meeting for Monday, 19 October, to discuss the situation and possible responses. The clashes increased pressure on the government to address public-order concerns while the protests' underlying economic and social grievances remained a subject of public debate. At the same time, the transport stoppages in Sicily and Calabria remained in effect as part of the five-day action scheduled to end on 20 October. The protests continued to affect the movement of goods, while shortages of fuel and concerns about deliveries remained significant issues in parts of southern Italy.
Farmers' and agricultural associations' grievances continued to centre on diesel prices, rising production costs and the gap between the prices received by producers and the costs of farming. However, available reports do not establish a separate nationwide agricultural strike specifically organized for 18 October. The documented agricultural actions were part of ongoing regional mobilizations.
19 October
On 19 October, the Italian government announced plans to send 500 military personnel to Milan following the weekend's unrest. Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said the deployment would be part of a wider security package. Fearing further violence, shops in Milan's luxury shopping district closed early or boarded up their windows. Police said 271 people had been detained during Sunday's unrest, including 23 minors, and that 32 people had been arrested. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni condemned the violence, as the government considered further measures to address youth disorder.
Roberto Vannacci argued for a zero tollerance policy on vandalism during the protests and proposed that the rioters were to pay for the damages inflicted on private property and public property during the protests.
Propaganda and disinformation
On October 19, 2026, Monica Castro, a local city councillor for Calenzano representing the Futuro Nazionale, posted a digitally altered image of a student demonstration on her social media accounts. The original photograph, taken during a student protest in Cagliari, showed demonstrators holding a banner that read "Soldi alla scuola, non alla guerra" ("Money for school, not for war"). In the version shared by Castro, the banner had been modified using artificial intelligence software to display a grammatically incorrect slogan: "Soldi alla scuola, Meloni ha casa" (using the verb "ha" [has] instead of the preposition "a" [to/at/go]). Castro captioned the post with the ironic comment, "Andateci. A scuola" ("Go there. To school"). Critics and media outlets pointed out that the image was a fabricated counterfeit intended to misrepresent the students as uneducated and discredit the motivations of the protest.
Matteo Salvini
Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, who leads the right-wing League, announced the 500-strong deployment on social media. "From words to action: 500 more troops to defend Milan," he wrote. Salvini claimed the rioters had deliberately set out to clash with police, and rejected economic hardship as any kind of justification. "This is not social distress," he insisted, and instead called for tougher laws — ones that would allow minors to be held preventively and arrests to be made based on video footage of looters.
Analysis
Donatella della Porta, a sociologist and political scientist, connected these protests to a lifetime of crises experienced by Generation Z; including austerity, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic. She notes that the protests against the Gaza genocide provided these youth with a vital opportunity for social interaction after years of isolation from the pandemic, forging a powerful social bond that has led to the coining of the term "Gaza Generation"; which in turn contributed to the 2026 Italian unrest and the wider protests in Europe.
↑""Italia in piazza", cortei in tredici città". Tgcom24 (in Italian). 17 October 2026. Retrieved 20 October 2026. {{cite web}}: Text "A Milano violenti si infiltrano tra i manifestanti e scatenano la guerriglia: 50 fermi" ignored (help)
.svg){kind=logo}
![[icon]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg){kind=small}