Police fire tear gas at cost-of-living protesters outside Milan cathedral

Right · 2Italian police fired tear gas on Saturday 17 October after coming under attack from protesters throwing stones and other objects in the square in front of Milan's Gothic cathedral, according to Italian media reports. 1 2 Right · 2Police in riot gear also tried to clear hooded protesters from the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, the luxury shopping arcade on one side of the square, as groups broke away from a protest over the high cost of living. 1 2 Right · 2Shops pulled down their shutters and tourists fled the central area, and the Duomo metro station was closed during the clashes, in which several people were reported injured and arrests were made. 1 2

Right · 2In Bologna, police used water cannon to try to disperse crowds and made seven arrests after another protest turned violent, the ANSA news agency reported. 1 2 Right · 1Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who faces an election next year, condemned the violence, writing on X: "Demonstrating is a right. Turning our cities into battlegrounds is not." 2 Right · 2The coverage likened the clashes to violence in neighbouring France, where tens of thousands of people angered by rising costs and declining public services took to the streets the same day in some of the country's most violent protests in years. 1 2