Roughly 5,000 demonstrators gathered in central Milan on Saturday for what was billed as a cost-of-living protest, but the event spiraled into running clashes that left 141 police officers injured and turned the square outside Italy’s largest church into what one Italian wire service described as a battlefield.
According to Italy’s public news wire Ansa, police detained 197 people during the demonstration and arrested 28, among them 12 minors and six foreign nationals. The agency also reported a heavy presence of “second-generation migrants” among those involved in the unrest.
The violence centered on Piazza del Duomo, the plaza fronting Milan Cathedral, the neo-Gothic seat of the Archbishop of Milan. Rioters threw stones, smoke bombs, fireworks and Molotov cocktails, forcing officers to retreat before eventually deploying water cannons to clear the square.
Officers injured, including the city’s police chief
Among the wounded was Milan police chief Angelo De Simone, who was struck in the head by a cobblestone and suffered a significant wound, according to the local daily Corriere della Sera. Rioters also set fires in the streets, smashed storefront windows and looted shops — scenes that have become familiar in neighboring France, where unrest over living costs has gripped several cities in recent weeks.
Ansa’s account described a rapid collapse of order: “Milan was reduced to a battlefield, with Piazza Duomo besieged by hundreds of young people dressed in black. They forced the police to retreat under the hurling of firecrackers, barriers, and bottles, until they occupied the city’s symbolic square.”
Some participants chanted in French, and the Milan march was explicitly modeled on the protests across the border. Smaller episodes of violence were also reported in Turin and Bologna, though on a lesser scale.
Il Giornale blames the mayor; Meloni condemns ‘thugs’
The right-leaning newspaper Il Giornale laid responsibility at the feet of Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala and his Green Party-led coalition, accusing them of having “fomented” the riots. “Dear Sala, mayor of Youth and Islamists, apologise to the Milanese for the guerrilla war in the city,” the paper wrote.
Il Giornale also offered a vivid portrait of the participants, describing masked groups in black who resemble the old Black Bloc but are in fact 12- and 13-year-olds with no criminal records, many from the multicultural suburbs ringing Milan. The paper said some call themselves “Generation Gaza” and carried the Albanian flag in solidarity with unrest in Tirana, and it pointed to a TikTok video of rioters attacking a store as evidence the violence was staged for online consumption. “They don’t care about the high cost of living: the march is the pretext, the center is the target, boredom is the great and powerful fuse,” the paper wrote.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni responded on X, saying she has “great respect” for those who protested peacefully on Saturday but condemning “the thugs who exploit demonstrations to sow chaos, attack those who ensure security, and hold entire cities hostage.”
“Demonstrating is a right. Setting our cities ablaze is not,” she wrote, renewing her call for the opposition to “unequivocally condemn these acts of violence and issue a clear appeal for every mobilization to be peaceful.” She added: “In the face of scenes like these, the rejection must be unanimous. Any hesitation becomes justification. Silence is not acceptable.”
Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, leader of the populist Lega party, used the unrest to revive his push for legislation requiring protest organizers to post a financial deposit as insurance against damage to public or private property caused by demonstrators.
A pattern crossing borders
The Milan clashes mirror the violence that has unfolded in France, where rioters have torched vehicles, looted businesses and clashed with security forces during cost-of-living demonstrations. Some social media users suggested the Duomo was singled out as a target because of the composition of the crowd, though that claim has not been substantiated.
Saturday’s toll — more than a hundred officers hurt, nearly 200 people detained, a city landmark overrun — has thrust questions about immigration, suburban alienation and the limits of protest into the center of Italian politics, with the government demanding that the opposition draw a clear line between dissent and disorder.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2026/10/18/dozens-arrested-after-multicultural-riots-outside-of-milans-duomo-cathedral/