With the cry of “freedom!”, The demonstrations against the restrictive measures, sometimes punctuated by clashes and degradations, multiply in Italy where traders, employees and independents fear the second wave of the economic slump after the new restrictive decisions.
Read also: Covid-19: these crucial decisions taken in camera by the Defense Council
The gatherings of hundreds of people on average each time, often starting from calls launched on social networks, are now daily in the cities of the peninsula.
"The fuse lit three days ago in Piazza Plebiscito in Naples has already succeeded in spreading the fire from one end of Italy to the other
,
"
wrote the daily La Repubblica on Tuesday October 27.
To respond to the restart of the number of daily contaminations (about 17,000 on Monday), the government has imposed in recent days what the media qualify as "semi-containment": a curfew in several large regions, the closure of bars and restaurants at 6 p.m., as well as that of sports halls, cinema and concert halls.
Painful measures for a country which must experience its worst recession this year since World War II, but essential according to the government.
He wants at all costs to avoid a new epidemic outbreak similar to the one that hit Lombardy in the spring, a rich northern region where the authorities had to call on the army to store the coffins.
Health emergency versus economic emergency
Police officers stand near a garbage can set on fire by protesters in Rome, October 27, 2020. GUGLIELMO MANGIAPANE / REUTERS
But the demonstrators who have been gathering for a few days in front of the headquarters of the presidencies of regions do not want to hear about re-containment.
"Liberty, liberty, liberty!"
, chanted Monday evening in the rain hundreds of people in Turin and Milan.
On the sidelines of these demonstrations bringing together students, restaurant owners, taxi drivers, representatives of the world of culture, trams have been vandalized, garbage cans set on fire, motorcycles overturned and luxury store windows stoned.
Among the rioters, members of groups of “ultra” supporters and others close to the extreme right, often young.
The national anti-mafia prosecutor, Federico Cafiero De Raho, accused on the radio the mafia movements on Monday of encouraging disorder, citing, about the demonstrations in Naples,
"clear signs of criminal participation of the Camorra"
, the mafia local.
A European contagion?
Other European countries have already imposed a curfew or local re-containment, limited the opening hours of shops and mobility, but without knowing for the moment the movements of anger seen in Italy.
Read also: Clashes in London during an anti-containment demonstration
Germany was one of the first European countries to demonstrate, from mid-April, opposition to restrictive measures linked to Covid-19 even though this country has never experienced strict confinement.
The demonstrations there gave rise to several outbursts testifying to radicalization.
In Spain, demonstrations have remained marginal and peaceful since the start of the pandemic, despite one of the strictest confinements in the world in the spring.
Sporadic protests take place in Austria or Portugal, as well as in the United Kingdom.
On Saturday, protesters denouncing "tyranny" gathered near Buckingham Palace before marching through central London.
