Milan, two days of chaos in front of the Duomo – the aftermath. On Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th October, the centre of Milan turned into a battlefield. It all started as “Italia in Piazza”, a national demonstration against the cost of living, expensive fuel, bills and taxes. More than 5,000 people in the square with legitimate reasons. Then the protest was hijacked. Groups of very young people dressed in black, faces covered, started throwing stones, bottles, barriers and firecrackers at the police. They occupied Piazza Duomo, the Galleria, Via Torino. The result is what you see in the video: water cannons, tear gas, smashed shop windows, Rinascente, Nike, Foot Locker, Levi’s, Decathlon and a Carrefour looted. Scooters and dumpsters set on fire. Duomo metro station closed. Tourists barricaded inside shops. The official police figures released today, 19th October: 271 people taken to the police headquarters in two days, 220 are minors, some 12-13 years old, 32 total arrests, of which 23 minors. Among those arrested, 13 foreign citizens 104 officers injured on Saturday alone, another 14 on Sunday Estimated damages over 1 million euros. Contrary to what is circulating on social media, according to the official reports the vast majority of those detained are “Italian” kids, many of them minors. There is a part of foreigners and second generations, as in all major European cities, but they are not the majority according to the official numbers. And here comes the most important point, that no one wants to face: failed integration. It is not a question of ethnicity or religion. It is a question of failed integration. When you have thousands of 13, 14, 15-year-old kids making appointments on TikTok and Telegram to go and smash everything in the Duomo, who were born and raised here, who have no prospects, who don’t study, who don’t work, who see the State only as Police, it means that the integration model has failed. It was not enough to give a house. It was not enough to give a subsidy. If you don’t teach language, respect, work, rules, Italian culture, you create a generation of children of no one. Neither Italian, nor foreign. Just angry. And this anger now explodes together with that of Italians who cannot make ends meet. It is the same anger you saw in the video of the farmer sitting on the ground in front of the Carabinieri. Two different faces of the same hardship. Milan is the warning. If we don’t start again from school, work and security, what happened in Paris will happen here too. Italy in chaos, Europe in chaos.
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