About a thousand participants in the capital, according to police sources (about two thousand, according to the students present in the square). A thousand also in Milan, as in Bari and Veneto. In Palermo, the front of discontent is divided: on one side the procession of the Student Coordination of Palermo, on the other the demonstration of Student Action.
After days of occupations in schools and much talk, the student protest against the Meloni government and the new Merit season turned out to be a failure. “Complaints in 30 Italian squares, for 100,000 visitors”, stated the demonstrators. In fact, the mobilization action organized by the Rete degli Studenti, Unione degli Universitari, other acronyms and local collectives, resulting from the war of numbers, did not have the support that was expected.
In Rome, at the head of the procession, the red flag of the Secondary School Student Network “But what merit”. The students left the Circus Maximus, in the rain, to reach Viale Trastevere. Chaos all around, with closed roads, public transport diversions and consequent blockages and slowdowns in traffic from Via Portuense to Lungotevere Testaccio until just before lunchtime. “Nobody represents us”, “We are the square of those who are discriminated against”, the boys shouted angrily. From slogans like “The public school doesn’t move!” shouting against “this fascist government”. Strali also against the center-left. “The Democratic Party is trying to exploit us to drink consensus issues”, words of some dissidents. In Largo Riberti, the group of precarious university researchers Re Strike separated from the procession for a police raid on the Ministry of University and Research: about twenty symbolically occupied the secretariat shouting “No to zero-cost reforms”. «We are here – explained Bianca Chiesa, national coordinator of the Students’ Association to reiterate that now we are the ones who decide, about our future and about our present. We want concrete responses from the right to study policy, which must be guaranteed to all. The school-work alternation must be abolished immediately to stop the deaths of students in the factory”.
In Milan, choruses of insults directed at Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the Presidents of the Chamber and Senate, Lorenzo Fontana and Ignazio la Russa. The Enel shop in via Broletto was smeared with black paint. Egg launch in Turin. The Minister of Education and Merit, Giuseppe Valditara, said he was “always available for dialogue” in the competent offices. “It is always good for students to express their ideas and present their own proposals, it is one of the fundamental elements of free societies”, he added.
Source: IL Tempo
Emma Fitzgerald is an accomplished political journalist and author at The Nation View. With a background in political science and international relations, she has a deep understanding of the political landscape and the forces that shape it.
