What Happened
On Saturday, October 17, thousands of Italians marched in cities across the country to protest the rising cost of living and the state of public services. Many of the marches were called by the CGIL, Italy’s largest trade union, with more than five million members, which demanded higher wages, lower rents, and better public services. Most of the demonstrators were peaceful.
But in several cities the protests turned violent. In Milan, masked protesters threw stones at police in the Piazza del Duomo, in front of the city’s great Gothic cathedral, and officers answered with tear gas and water cannon. Shops were looted and windows smashed in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, the famous shopping arcade beside the cathedral, and the Duomo metro station was closed. In Turin, police stopped people carrying cobblestones and window-breaking hammers. In Bologna, police used a water cannon to disperse crowds, and the railway station was closed as a precaution.
The violence continued on Sunday, October 18. According to Reuters, several hundred hooded protesters broke shop windows and set bins on fire near the Piazza del Duomo, and police again responded with tear gas and water cannon. Rioters broke into a market and carried off its alcohol.
Reported figures vary. The Associated Press, citing the LaPresse agency, reported that about 50 demonstrators, including minors, were detained in Milan on Saturday and that at least two officers were hurt. A police report cited by Reuters said 28 people were arrested after Saturday’s clashes in Milan, Bologna, Brescia, Bergamo and Turin, and more than 60 protesters were taken to a Milan police station on Sunday for checks. Some outlets reported far higher numbers of injured officers across the three main cities.
“Demonstrating Is a Right. Setting Our Cities Ablaze Is Not.”
Giorgia Meloni responded at once. She thanked the peaceful protesters, including those who marched with the CGIL and left-wing leaders: “Whatever the ideas for which one demonstrates, participation is the foundation of any healthy democracy.” But she would not ignore the violence:
She called on the opposition to “unequivocally condemn these acts of violence,” warning that “any hesitation becomes justification. Silence is not acceptable.” And she thanked the police: “Once again, the women and men of the law enforcement forces have had to face the violence of criminals who, even through organized groups, exploit demonstrations to seek confrontation and sow chaos … they were there to safeguard the safety of citizens, workers, merchants, and all the people who have the right to live in their city without fear and without seeing it laid to waste and set ablaze by gangs of thugs. We stand with you.” Meloni called a government meeting for Monday to discuss the situation.
From France to Italy
The Italian unrest came only days after France was rocked by some of its most violent protests in years. What began in France as anger over schools and education spread into protests over the cost of living and the price of fuel, as we reported in France’s Burning Schools. Cars were torched, shops looted, and a historic town hall set on fire, and by our last update nearly 7,000 people had been arrested. President Emmanuel Macron said, “There is nothing that justifies this, nothing that explains it, nothing that excuses it,” while acknowledging “legitimate claims about the cost of living and the price of fuel.” Unrest has also been reported in Belgium and Albania. In the United States, President Trump wrote on Truth Social that “France is burning,” blaming mass immigration and urging Europe to “close your borders and take control before it’s too late.”
The causes are many: high prices, strained public services, unemployment among the young, mass immigration, and organized agitators who use peaceful marches as cover. But the pattern across Europe is the same: crowds that begin with a complaint and end with stones, fire, and looting.
Real Hardship, but No Excuse
The struggles of ordinary families are real. Scripture does not dismiss the cry of the poor or the burden of unjust wages: “Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth” (James 5:4). God hears the oppressed, and rulers will answer to Him for how they govern.
But the Bible never permits the oppressed to take vengeance into their own hands, and still less to loot shopkeepers who had nothing to do with their troubles. “Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good” (Ephesians 4:28). “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves … for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord” (Romans 12:19). The rioter who smashes a merchant’s window and carries off his goods is not fighting injustice; he is committing it.
The police who stood in the square that night were doing what God ordained the civil power to do: “For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil … for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil” (Romans 13:3–4). Meloni was right to stand with them.
A Continent That Has Turned from God
It is a striking picture: violence in the shadow of Milan’s Duomo, one of the largest cathedrals in the world, in the heart of a nation that has been Roman Catholic for centuries. Yet Italy, like France, has largely abandoned even the outward forms of religion, and Rome never gave its people the gospel of grace. A people taught that salvation comes through a church and its sacraments, and who then abandon that church, are left with nothing at all: no fear of God, no restraint, no hope beyond the next paycheck. “There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Romans 3:18).
Paul foretold such days: “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God” (2 Timothy 3:1–4). Isaiah described a nation under judgment: “the people shall be oppressed, every one by another … the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable” (Isaiah 3:5).
No government program, however generous, can cure what is fundamentally a disease of the heart. Lower rents and higher wages are good things, but they will not make a lawless man lawful. Only the gospel changes the heart: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
How Christians Should Respond
Christians in Italy, France, and every troubled land are called to be lights in the darkness: to pray for those in authority, “that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty” (1 Timothy 2:2); to seek the peace of the cities where God has placed them (Jeremiah 29:7); to work honestly and be content with what God provides (1 Timothy 6:6–8); and to have nothing to do with those who stir up violence: “My son, fear thou the LORD and the king: and meddle not with them that are given to change” (Proverbs 24:21).
Pray for the shopkeepers whose livelihoods were destroyed, for the officers who were injured, for the many peaceful citizens who are genuinely struggling, and for the young men who threw stones in the Piazza del Duomo, that God would grant them repentance. And pray for the small number of faithful believers in Italy, that they would hold forth the word of life to a nation that desperately needs it.
Sources: Reuters, via Arab News and U.S. News & World Report, October 17–18, 2026; the Associated Press, citing LaPresse; ANSA; JournalArta Global, October 19, 2026; statements by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on X; video report “‘Gang of thugs’: Giorgia Meloni erupts at violent rioters as carnage in France spreads to Italy” (transcript).