Heroes or Terrorists? How Italy’s Left- and Right-Leaning Media Portray the Rioters

Police clash with rioters in Rome. Left-leaning media have portrayed the rioters’ grievances as justified, while right-leaning media have called for their arrest. Photo: Screenshot from a video posted on X by Fonsi Loaiza.

On October 18, the day after rioters looted central Milan, the communist daily Il Manifesto ran its front-page story under “La bella stagione” (The Beautiful Season), with the headline “The city’s excluded take the streets.” In the right-wing La Verità, editor Maurizio Belpietro titled his editorial “Them in jail, us in the streets” and wrote that the destroyers “should not be understood, but punished.”

Those contrasting responses reflect the Italian media’s longstanding political divide, evident in coverage of Milan’s riots.

The main right-leaning dailies are Il Giornale, Libero and Il Tempo, controlled by Lega deputy Antonio Angelucci, and Belpietro’s La Verità. On the left are the center-left La Repubblica and La Stampa, Domani, Il Manifesto, and Marco Travaglio’s anti-system Il Fatto Quotidiano. Corriere della Sera, ANSA and Sky TG24 sit closer to the center.

Left-leaning papers frame the violence as a symptom of economic hardship and state repression, calling the government’s emergency security decree an overreach. Right-leaning papers emphasize failed immigration policy, Islamist influence and a political left they accuse of tolerating or supporting the violence.

The two camps disagree most sharply over the rioters’ identities and the significance of the alleged organizer’s detention.

The unrest began on October 17, when a cost-of-living march called “Italia in Piazza” (Italy in the Square) turned violent in central Milan. Of roughly 5,000 marchers, about 500 young people broke away and attacked police with stones, firecrackers and barriers in Piazza Duomo. Looting continued on October 18. Police took 271 people to headquarters, 220 of them minors, and held 174 preventively. Police figures put officer injuries at 14: ten State Police and four local police.

Early injury reports differed. ANSA initially reported at least four officers and 20 protesters injured. Citing Lombardy’s emergency service, Areu, the Giornale di Brescia reported ten officers and about 15 protesters injured. A politician quoted in Sky TG24’s live coverage claimed more than 100 officers were injured, though the reports did not establish a common timeframe or geographic scope for comparison.

Meloni wrote that demonstrating is a right but setting cities ablaze is not. She called on the opposition to condemn the violence without ambiguity.

On October 20, the Council of Ministers approved a decree sending 500 additional soldiers to Milan. A provision granting them police powers was dropped after the Presidency of the Republic objected.

Reported provisions included a new offense of “violenza organizzata nelle manifestazioni pubbliche” (organized violence at public demonstrations), carrying penalties Meloni described as up to five years in prison and fines up to 20,000 euros ($21,600). Reporting also described measures concerning preventive detention and criminal responsibility for minors aged 14 and older, and parental fines of 500 to 1,000 euros ($540 to $1,080).

Milan’s second weekend of protests, on October 24, passed without looting. With 1,400 police, carabinieri and soldiers deployed, police identified 2,921 people, took 196 to headquarters, held 171 preventively, referred 44 to prosecutors and arrested five.

That morning, police detained Youssef Siher, a 30-year-old Italian of Moroccan origin whom Milan prosecutors identify as the creator of “Movimento 17 Ottobre” (October 17 Movement), the online group that called the protests. He is under investigation for incitement to commit crimes with an alleged terrorist purpose, an aggravating circumstance, and for organized violence under the new decree.

A 2024 trainee at the Milan-based Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI), Siher also wrote for Il Fatto Quotidiano but reportedly stopped about 18 months ago. Early reports of his origins conflicted: Il Sole 24 Ore described him as of Palestinian origin and LaPresse as of Egyptian origin, before ANSA and most outlets reported Moroccan origins. Il Tempo reported that judicial review of his detention was due by October 26.

On the far left, Il Manifesto portrayed the riots as an uprising of excluded youth. Its correspondent described two days of spontaneous revolt by marginalized, racialized young people labeled “maranza,” a slang label often applied to street youths, including second-generation immigrants. It attributed their anger to police repression and institutional indifference. According to Libero, Brothers of Italy (FdI) deputy Emanuele Loperfido publicly condemned the paper’s front page.

Il Fatto Quotidiano emphasized protesters’ accounts. One feature quoted a 19-year-old in Milan who said repression was the only response to young people’s complaints about an unsustainable life. It cited living costs, rearmament and difficulty making ends meet as drivers of the protests. Its reporting on Siher focused on legal proceedings, citing prosecutors’ description of him as an effective instigator and a flight risk. It also reported that Genoa prosecutors were checking for links to a network accused of financing Hamas, while noting that Siher had never been named in that investigation.

Domani focused on police conduct, reporting that two adult students with no criminal records had their home searched without a warrant on October 24. Nothing was found.

Open, founded by television journalist Enrico Mentana, emphasized student organizers’ accounts. A Deriva collective member said media coverage of the clashes made them invisible. Another report listed protesters’ concerns: living costs, stagnant wages, school funding, the new cap on foreign students per classroom, European rearmament and Palestine.

La Repubblica and La Stampa covered the violence while emphasizing its causes. According to the Swiss daily Corriere del Ticino, La Repubblica reported that recruitment through Telegram and TikTok targeted second-generation Italians from the Lombard provinces. La Stampa’s October 18 front-page commentary argued that violence had undermined the protest’s aims.

Avvenire, the Italian Bishops’ Conference newspaper, took a similar line despite not being left-wing, publishing an op-ed criticizing the decree. Milan Archbishop Mario Delpini told La Repubblica that aggression cannot be contained by repression alone.

The right-leaning press blamed immigration and the left. Libero, edited by Mario Sechi, quoted FdI’s Lombardy security councillor Romano La Russa, who blamed leftist social centers and maranza he described as products of Democratic Party integration policies. Columnist Pietro Senaldi accused Milan Mayor Beppe Sala of attacking the Interior Ministry instead of those who looted his city.

After Siher’s detention, Libero ran the headline “Non è disagio, è Islam” (It’s Not Hardship, It’s Islam), alleging an Islamic political project to destabilize Italy behind the looting. It also accused Il Fatto Quotidiano of blaming the government while the alleged organizer was a former contributor to the paper.

La Verità described the October 18 looters as hundreds of hooded youths, mostly minors and of foreign origin, and called Sala’s complaint about insufficient police “surreal.” An editorial argued that the riots’ only political impetus came from progressive elites seeking to exploit the anger of “new Italians.” Lega MEP Silvia Sardone told the paper that Siher’s case revealed an alliance between Muslim radicalism and the radical left.

Il Tempo emphasized organization and intelligence warnings. It reported that Bruno Valensise, director of Italy’s domestic intelligence service, AISI, had warned of convergence with the radical left, describing links among far-left militants, Islamists, pro-Palestinian activists and maranza. Its Siher profile said he contributed to Al Mayadeen, a Hezbollah-aligned Arab satellite channel, and was a leader of the Young Palestinians of Italy. Il Giornale highlighted Meloni’s description of the rioters as thugs exploiting demonstrations to sow chaos.

The populist-right Il Giornale d’Italia broke with other right-wing papers after Siher’s detention, mocking them for abandoning hardship as an explanation once the alleged organizer emerged as Muslim and a former Il Fatto contributor. It questioned whether he had organized everything alone.

The center-right Rome daily Il Messaggero reported that deploying Folgore paratroopers to Milan aimed to blunt the propaganda of Roberto Vannacci, the former Folgore general who leads Futuro Nazionale (National Future) and has pressed the government on security.

Official accounts leave key questions unresolved. In his initial assessment, Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said findings excluded structured links to radical-left groups, describing the unrest as spontaneous and fluid. Defense Minister Guido Crosetto called it a product of hybrid warfare. By October 24, prosecutors had identified an alleged organizer.

Police counted 60 foreign nationals among the 271 people brought in on October 18. The figures do not separately identify second-generation immigrants with Italian citizenship, leaving competing claims about the rioters’ backgrounds unresolved.

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