The protest of the students, parades in forty Italian squares in memory of the Friulian Lorenzo Parelli

UDINE. The students returned to protest, on Friday 18 February, in 40 Italian cities. The objective of the demonstrations was still centered on school-work alternation, or at least against a modality considered an “instrument of exploitation, without protection of rights”.

Throughout Italy, demonstrations and processions took place in memory of the 16-year-old Giuseppe Lenoci from the Marche region and the 18-year-old from Friuli Lorenzo Parelli, both of whom died during their internship. The other front of the student protest was aimed at the new test of maturity, “formulated without listening to the requests of us students.”

There were, however, moments of tension. Clashes between students and police in Turin, near the Confindustria headquarters. After throwing eggs of paint at the building in via Vela, some young people forced the entrance gate and tried to enter the offices, but were rejected: a few beatings flew.

Misrepresented and armed with stones and sticks, some of the demonstrators broke away from the procession and tried to enter. There are at least seven injured among the police: these are two officers, one of the police who was hit by a blow to the head, and one of the carabinieri. Five other carabinieri slightly injured. The procession of students, meanwhile, had already moved in front of the school office, in Corso Vittorio.

No accident, however, in Piazza Fontana in Milan. The procession of students dotted its path with slogans and symbolic actions against school-work alternation, war and the rejection of the referendums on euthanasia and the liberalization of soft drugs. In front of the Archbishopric, the demonstrators wrote on a banner: «Legal euthanasia-legal cannabis. The Church is out of our lives ». Shortly before, in the Assolombarda campus, the students wrote on the ground with the paint “Stop Pcto” and launched a smoke bomb over the barriers.

There are forty Italian squares where students began to parade, starting in the morning and afternoon of Friday 18 February, with signs against the alternation between school and work, which has now become the mantra of the rebellion of the Covid Generation. It was the reason for leaving, even if the two boys – Lorenzo Parelli and Giuseppe Lenoci – died on stage, in the province of Udine and in Ancona. They attended professional courses. It is the reason for contesting, in the season of coming out of a harsh pandemic, everything that smacks of school and even of an adult.

In recent weeks, the politically active groups to the left of the two historic “syndicates”, the Student Union and the Middle Students Network, have expanded. Acronyms have grown such as the Communist Youth Front, red flags at each exit, the OSA, those of the Lupa in Rome. All together they contest “the liberal and industrial drift” of Italian education: “You can’t die of school-work”, says Simon Vial, head of the Fgc school, “let’s say no to a system that teaches young people that it is normal to work for free, without rights and security “.

The Minister of the Interior, Luciana Lamorgese, attacked for too many batons in previous outings, feared the entry into the demonstrations of antagonists, especially in Turin and Naples, and had asked the mobile departments of the police to wear body cams . “There are no infiltrators, just angry students,” she replied. In Turin, however, there were clashes.

From today until Sunday 20 February, the Students’ Union will organize “The general states of the school” in Rome, with 600 students called to present – after a year-long work – their education reform.