Milan luxury shops close for fear of further unrest, govt prepares new crackdown

By Elisa Anzolin

MILAN, Oct 19 (Reuters) – Shops in central Milan closed early and boarded up their windows on Monday, fearing a new wave of unrest after two days of protests that saw demonstrators clash with police, loot stores and vandalise property.

Most stores in Milan’s Via Montenapoleone luxury shopping district, home to brands including Chanel, Tiffany and Dior, had removed merchandise from their windows as a precaution, while police patrolled the street and a handful of tourists looked on.

Several hundred hooded protesters, many believed to be minors, set bins ablaze and looted shops in the city centre over the weekend after an initially peaceful demonstration on Saturday over poor public services and rising costs.

Among the stores ransacked were sports retailers Decathlon and Arc’teryx and mobile phone operator Vodafone, television footage showed. Stores such as clothing brands Levi’s and Under Armour, as well as Decathlon, covered their shop windows with cardboard and wooden panels.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who faces a national election next year, condemned the violence and chaired a meeting with ministers and security chiefs on Monday to discuss the situation.

The government is planning to introduce measures proposed by the police aimed at preventing and combatting such outbreaks of violence, a gouvernment source said, adding that the proposals would be put to a cabinet meeting expected on Tuesday.

Corriere della Sera newpaper said Meloni was considering extending preventive detention for minors and cracking down on youth gangs, bringing forward some provisions contained in an existing security bill currently being examined by parliament.

Italian police said it had detained 271 young people during unrest in Milan on Sunday. Of those taken to police stations, 32 were arrested, including 23 minors and 13 foreign nationals, police said on Monday. A further 28 people were reported to judicial authorities.

The unrest followed clashes on Saturday in Milan and other northern cities including Bologna, Brescia, Bergamo and Turin, where 28 protesters were arrested, according to a police report released on Sunday.

The disturbances echoed unrest in neighbouring France, where hundreds of thousands of people angered by rising living costs and declining public services took to the streets on Saturday in some of the country’s most violent protests in years.

(Writing by Gianluca Semeraro, editing by Ros Russell and Crispian Balmer)