Italian Students Join French in Growing Autumn School Uprising

TURIN (10-17) – Italian high school and university students along with teachers demonstrated and marched during a consolidated nationwide day-long school strike across the country on October 16. The students have been inspired by the recent French student blockades and protests and in reaction to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s proposed cuts in educational spending along with a recently adopted decree-law which has banned the wearing of face coverings including burqas and niqabs in class. Additionally, the new law limits non-Italian speaking students to no more than 30 percent of the class size. In reference to this, many carried signs calling for an end to such blatant racism. Opposition politicians have characterized Meloni as “prioritizing culture-war politics over the interests of students and schools.”

During a short rally ahead of the march, Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, far-right politician former army general Roberto Vannacci and Minister of University and Research Anna Maria Bernini were singled out for insulting chants by the crowd.

Vannacci is most reviled as head of the Futuro Nazionale (National Future Party [FN]) party which has called for the implementation of “remigration” in which non-white immigrants would be forcibly returned to their countries of origin as part of an ethnic cleansing program in Italy. This once fringe concept has been gaining momentum in far-right politics across Europe and in the U.S. and Canada.

Like their French counterparts, Italian students and those in eight other European countries are protesting the dilapidated state of their schools, shortages of teaching staff, calls against Meloni and military spending. They are demanding increases in government spending to ensure safe and healthy learning environments and continuing their demand for an end to the occupation and genocide in Gaza and for an end of the Italian governments complicity by supplying weapons to Israel.

Teachers and staff have joined students in solidarity, by demanding better job security along with a 20 percent salary increase to keep up with inflation that is eating away at their famously low wages.

Before the student march began, environmental activists from the “Fridays for Future” movement, also known as School Strike for Climate, marched to the Piazza XVIII Diciembre alongside members of Extinction Rebellion and the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) group where the combined.

The growing crowd began their march across the city under a heavy police presence while they peacefully carried signs calling for an end to racist propaganda, No to War, against the high cost of living, rejection to the proposed Lyon to Torino rapid train project and also noting that “The Schools Are Our Schools.”

What has most driven the growing “Student Autumn” movement across Europe, Argentina, Brazil, and India is the tension between students who say their governments are ignoring their demands and a generational divide in which older lawmakers and leaders dismiss young people’s calls for full education funding. The net result of which is that this divide has ignited and empowered students in their demands for a better and more equitable education for all.

The march ended on a mostly peaceful note with only three arrests of minors for various violations.

This student movement will not end anytime soon unless governments make concessions to reform education in meaningful ways that place greater value on society’s obligation to prepare its citizens for a future that benefits everyone.

Report and photos by Phil Pasquini

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