Rioters Loot Stores in Milan as Cost-of-Living Protest Turns Violent

What began as a peaceful march against rising living costs in Milan turned violent Saturday, with rioters looting stores and setting fires in the city's historic center, The Times of Israel reported. Demonstrators carrying Palestinian flags and keffiyehs had gathered to protest the cost of living when masked participants began throwing stones and paving blocks at police and torching makeshift barricades, emptying the normally crowded Piazza del Duomo and a nearby luxury shopping arcade.

Police responded with water cannons and tear gas. At least two officers were injured and roughly 50 people, including a number of minors, were detained, according to Italian news agency LaPresse. A separate water-cannon operation in Bologna led to seven more arrests as protests there also turned violent.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni condemned the unrest, saying "demonstrating is a right. Setting our cities ablaze is not," and blaming "hooligans who exploit demonstrations to sow chaos." Milan's center-left mayor, Giuseppe Sala, took a more measured tone, saying he understood the underlying grievances over living costs even as he called the violence against police and the damage to the city unjustifiable.

The Milan unrest unfolded alongside similar cost-of-living demonstrations across France that same weekend, underscoring how economic protest movements in parts of Europe have increasingly folded in Palestinian-related imagery and slogans alongside their original grievances.