DW, 18 October, via AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters: Saturday, protests over the cost of living and pay. Sunday, Giorgia Meloni condemned the unrest and said she stood with police. “Demonstrating is a right, but setting our cities on fire is not.” Her words. It is not a court verdict.

Milan, Piazza Duomo. ANSA, picked up by DW: young people in black, masked, fireworks and bottles toward police, barricades. Police pulled back, waited for reinforcements, then tear gas. At least four officers hurt, 20 demonstrators. About 50 young people stopped, half of them minors, still ANSA. Stopped does not mean judged. We do not publish names. We do not publish teenagers’ faces.

There were clashes in Turin, Bologna, Bergamo too. Bologna: water cannon, four detentions, all minors, seven people reported to prosecutors. That is DW’s figure. It is not a closed national tally. ANSA: the Milan march, organised by Italia in piazza, against high prices and fuel. A group took the square. Police, still there: hundreds of young people, self-organised, from the outskirts and other provinces, without a single centre. That is the police version. It is not an indictment.

Mayor Giuseppe Sala: the reasons for the protest, understandable. Violence against police and the damage, not. Meloni asked the opposition not to be ambiguous. Deputy premiers, in ANSA: Tajani accuses part of the centre-left of fanning the fire. Salvini spoke ugly about the square. Those are campaign words. We do not make them facts. Organisers in Turin, in ANSA, asked for flags and hoods to be dropped. One of them, Marco Liccione, says he was surrounded and beaten by infiltrators. That is his complaint. It is not a sentence.

In Rome, thousands with CGIL. Maurizio Landini announced a general strike for 20 November. An announcement, not Saturday’s strike. High prices, stagnant real wages, housing hard to find in the big cities. That is DW’s list. The protest and the barricade are not the same thing. The photograph: the Duomo and the Galleria, 27 June 2016. Not Saturday. Not the gas.

Image: Steffen Schmitz, Milan Cathedral and Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, 27 June 2016, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. Not Saturday in October.

Sources consulted: Meloni backs police after cost-of-living protests turn violent in Italian cities — DW; La protesta per il carovita diventa guerriglia, Milano un campo di battaglia — ANSA.