Protests sweep Italian cities under heavy security, violent in Turin, Rome and Bologna and largely peaceful in Milan

Italy second weekend of protests ended on Saturday with clashes in several cities and no repeat of the looting that hit the country a week earlier. The demonstrations, called against the war and the rising cost of living, followed the unrest of October 17 and 18, when protesters fought with police, looted shops and vandalised property.

Picture is an illustration of a protest march in a northern Italian city center under a heavy police presence.

Reuters reported violence in Turin, Rome and Bologna, where officers and demonstrators clashed, and a largely peaceful day in Milan, the city hit hardest last weekend. Italian television reported police charges in Turin, where protesters threw firecrackers, rocks and glass bottles, and where some protesters burned a photograph of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Reuters witnesses did not observe any shops being looted or property vandalised on Saturday.

The security operation was built through the week. The October 17 Movement, the network that took its name from last weekend protests, called demonstrations in eight cities, Rome, Milan, Turin, Genoa, Florence, Padua, Bologna and Bari, with marches set to converge at meeting points announced only shortly before they began. Rome put about 1,500 officers on its center and shopping streets, backed by drones and helicopters. Milan deployed police, municipal officers and soldiers, with soldiers patrolling the center. Mayor Giuseppe Sala urged businesses to stay open. “If panic spreads then everything stops,” Sala said on Friday.

Police also moved against the organizers. Earlier on Saturday, Italian police said they had detained a person allegedly linked to organising the October 17 Movement and had taken that person to police headquarters in Milan for questioning. In the days before the marches, investigators carried out more than 150 searches in Milan, Monza and some 20 other cities, linked to the clashes of October 17 and 18, and searches of about 100 people, 51 of them minors, in Bari, Bergamo, Florence, Genoa and Verona. The government adopted a security decree during the week that creates an offence of violent participation in a demonstration and fines parents for damage their children cause during protests.