France Protest Updates: Hundreds of Thousands March Amid Heavy Security

Italy’s marches on Saturday were largely peaceful, although protesters clashed with police in Turin, Padua, Bologna and Rome, where a small group of protesters stormed the Colosseum. Police arrested just nine people across the country and reported 87 to prosecutors, Italian news agency ANSA reported.

In Milan, the site of last week’s largest and most violent demonstrations, some 10,000 people took to the streets, police estimated – five times as many as had marched the previous weekend.

Throngs of young people sang about their frustration with the high cost of living and Italy’s political establishment. They held hand-drawn signs condemning low wages, high rents, economic inequality and Italy’s financial support of Israel, whose war in Gaza is deeply unpopular with Italians.

Protesters said the country’s weak labor market and a government they see as focused more on military spending than investing in young people have set their generation up to fail.

“I look for work abroad every day of my life,” said Ilaria Carrozza, 27, a design engineer. “And that’s not fair: This is my country, I want to stay here. But I can’t live like this.”

Manfredi Cacioppo, a 26-year-old sales assistant from Sicily, said he was demonstrating in solidarity with truckers and farmers in southern Italy who had recently blocked roads and ports to protest high fuel prices caused by the war in Iran.

“It all comes from the same issue: spending money on war,” he said. “That money would be better invested in health, education, transport, the housing crisis and help for workers.”

Last weekend’s demonstrations took the northern cities of Italy by surprise. In Milan, groups of masked youths set fires, looted shops and lobbed projectiles at police, causing an estimated $1.1 million in damage, according to a local business association. 51 people, most of them minors, were arrested.

The left-wing mayor of Milan accused the national police of “underestimating the moment” and posting too few officers to the scene. Italy’s right-wing interior minister accused the mayor of moving to the left.

Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister, called an emergency meeting on Monday and announced tougher penalties for violent protesters. A cabinet member, Matteo Salvini, said the government would send 500 soldiers to Milan this weekend to defend the city against “criminals”.

On Saturday, army vehicles and police vans graced many of Milan’s main squares, and many shops in the city’s shopping district boarded up their windows. Throughout the city, police officers stopped groups of young people to check their identification documents.

For many protesters, the first challenge was figuring out where to go.

A social media account that helped organize the protests was supposed to post a meeting at 2:30 p.m. The announcement never came.

That unmoored many protesters. In bars and online chat rooms, they argue about where, and whether, to show up.

“We were lost and confused,” said Caterina Sironi, a 23-year-old university student. “We ran all over town.”

Ruggero Lorenzi, 19 and a high school student, went to Milan on three trains and a tram in search of a demonstration. “On Telegram, on Instagram, in metro stations, everyone was fighting about where to go,” he said.

After a few false starts — “ten people here, ten people out there,” he said — he found about 500 protesters gathered near a subway stop in the city center.

As Mr. Lorenzi’s protest dragged across town to the Politecnico di Milano, Milan’s oldest university, its ranks swelled.

Many protesters said they wanted to keep the demonstration peaceful, hoping their message would be heard. Police used tear gas and water cannons against protesters in other cities on Saturday, but not in Milan, where they reported no violence or damage.

“We’re trying to emulate the French protests,” said Joshua Flores, 21, who is unemployed. “I hope this protest continues in a positive way.”