Thousands of students protest across Italy against budget cuts

Thousands of Italian schoolchildren and students took to the streets countrywide yesterday to protest youth unemployment and education budget cuts by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right government.

There were mostly peaceful protests in about 100 Italian cities, with some scuffles breaking out in Milan’s banking centre and near the education ministry in Rome.

“This is the first rally of the autumn, the beginning of a large mobilisation to come,” Cesare Cagnetta, a student activist from Roma Tre university, said.

A small group began the day of protests with a symbolic gesture, putting alarm clocks outside of Mr Berlusconi’s offices in Rome before dawn.

“This government’s time is up. This generation doesn’t want to lose more time,” said one protester, as about 2,000 people rallied in another part of the Italian capital.

At one high school in the centre of Rome, students unfurled a banner reading: “It’s Not Our Debt, It’s Not our Crisis!” – echoing slogans used in recent months by protesters in the United States and other parts of Europe including Spain.

Protesters marched through Rome and gathered outside the education ministry. “Not Our Debt! No Solution, Global Revolution!” and “Wake up Italy!” read their placards.

Some of the protesters threw smoke bombs and firecrackers at police.

Around 3,000 marched through Turin, according to police, with a large banner in front reading: “Now you have to settle the scores with us!”

Several thousand also marched through Naples and there were hundreds at rallies in Genoa and Bari.

“We are rallying to reaffirm our rejection of a policy of constant cuts to education,” read a statement from the Union of Students.

The union said it believed a total of 150,000 had taken part in the demonstrations.

Pamphlets distributed at the protests said 47 per cent of young people were working in temporary jobs and 29 per cent were unemployed.

They also said that poor maintenance meant that 40 per cent of schools were not in conformity with building codes.

Over the past three years, Mr Berlusconi’s government has cut some €8 billion ($10.7 billion) from the education budget – one of a series of belt-tightening measures as Italy comes under pressure on financial markets.

Protest organisers said they would rally again in Rome today and were preparing a major mobilisation for October 15 – which has been nominated as a day for anti-capitalist “Indignant” protests.