Italy: the streets say no to the cost of living and rearmament, a warning for all of Europe

The facts

On Friday 30 October, the grassroots union USB called a general strike across Italy. According to Al Jazeera, tens of thousands of students and union members marched in Rome, Milan, Naples, Turin, Bologna and Genoa. According to Il Fatto Quotidiano, rallies were planned in more than fifty cities, and the union claims a parallel action by dockworkers in more than a hundred ports abroad against the transit of weapons.

Euronews reports that in Rome, near the Colosseum, a small group broke away from the march at the end of the demonstration, put up barricades and threw bottles at the police. Eight protesters were detained. In Genoa, dockworkers blocked part of the port early in the morning, and clashes broke out at the start of the Turin march, according to Al Jazeera.

This movement did not appear overnight. As AFP reported in mid-October, truck drivers and farmers were already blocking roads in the South over fuel prices, while high school and university students were protesting against the planned increase in the defence budget. After the violence in Milan on 17 and 18 October, Giorgia Meloni tightened the rules on public gatherings. On 24 October, according to the Belga agency, 371 people, including 110 minors, were briefly held by police during marches that remained largely peaceful.

What the streets are demanding

On its website, the USB sums up its demands: lower prices, energy bills and rents, higher wages, and an end to what it calls a "war economy". Il Fatto Quotidiano details the rest: a return to wage indexation on prices, lower VAT on essential goods, and a shift of public spending from weapons towards schools, healthcare and pensions.

The economic context explains this anger. According to Istat, quoted by AFP, inflation reached 4.2% year on year in September, driven by fuel. Al Jazeera notes that prices for food, energy and transport have risen by 68% since 2000, while the average wage has fallen by almost 5% over the same period. According to RTBF, the government has rejected every minimum wage proposal for four years, and a new general strike has been announced for 20 November.

The positions at stake

The government does not deny the difficulties. According to Al Jazeera, it approved 175 million euros in aid for truck drivers, farmers and fishermen hit by rising fuel prices, and its draft 2027 budget includes an annual bonus of 2,500 euros for employees under 30. Giorgia Meloni says she hopes to respond to young people who feel the State ignores them, while warning that these measures are not meant for those who smash windows.

Nothing different from what we have dealt with so far. — Matteo Piantedosi, Interior Minister, quoted by Euronews

On defence, the executive has already stepped back. Reuters reported in early October that Rome was reducing the planned increase in military spending from 0.9% to 0.6% of GDP, around 14 billion euros a year in 2027 and 2028, relying on the European escape clause that allows an additional deficit for defence. The agency stressed that this rearmament is unpopular and divides the coalition, while debt is expected to peak at nearly 139% of GDP. The government's argument is well known and deserves a hearing: Italy must honour its commitments to NATO and its European partners in the face of the Russian threat.

Unions and student organisations, for their part, accuse the authorities of responding with public order rather than purchasing power, as Belga notes.

The analysis

First, one confusion must be set aside. The violence of a small group near the Colosseum is reprehensible, and the State has a duty to protect property and people. But it does not sum up a national mobilisation. A government that saw this movement only as a law and order problem would be getting the diagnosis wrong.

The heart of the matter goes beyond Italy. Europe is asking its States to rearm, and it is right to do so in the face of a Russia waging war on its doorstep. But it has opened budgetary room only for defence. Nothing comparable exists to protect wages, public services or the energy transition. Rome has in fact chosen to devote part of this flexibility to energy, a sign that the dilemma is real.

France faces the same tension. Its own mobilisations against the cost of living, its budgetary constraints and its military commitments raise exactly the same question. A nation's security rests on its armed forces, but also on the support of its citizens. A defence effort seen as being paid for by the least well-off weakens that consent, and plays into the hands of those who advocate withdrawal.

Conclusion

France could put a simple proposal to Brussels: finance a larger share of the defence effort through common European borrowing, so that rearmament is not paid for with cuts to schools, hospitals or wages in each country. With major elections only months away in Italy as in France, the question is clear: can Europe ask its peoples to rearm without guaranteeing them that social justice will not be the adjustment variable?

Article written with the help of artificial intelligence.