Yet another day of siege was called in Rome yesterday November 20 by the NO TAV, anti-austerity and housing rights movements, to tackle the bilateral Italian-French summit, poised to ratify an international agreement on the construction of the Turin-Lyon Highspeed Railway Line (TAV).
See also: Clashes in Rome over high speed rail link
Besides the reasons that ever since back the opposition to the unnecessary great work (environmental and public health concerns, militarization of the territory - with more soldiers deployed in the valley than in the concurrent Italian imperialist mission in Herat, Afghanistan - senseless squandering of public money in times of crisis, alleged mafia affiliation and bankrupcy of the construction yard contractor firms etc.) this day of struggle followed the composite sieges to the seats of power last month, from the take of Porta Pia on 19o, to the 31o uprising against the State-Region housing roundtable and the 15n of high school students; but also the great mobilization of November 16, in which hundreds thousands people took the streets against environmental devastation projects and proliferation of toxic waste landfills, especially in Campania and in Susa Valley itself.
While Letta and Hollande were holed up in the aloof Villa Madama, the movement gathered in the historical Piazza di Campo De' Fiori in Rome, under the watchful eyes of scores of Guy Fawkes masks beneath the statue of the heretic priest and philosopher Giordano Bruno. Before the picket march started, lot of diffused actions took place: an assembly in the occupied high school Mamiani; the occupation of the headquarters of liberal centre-left Democratic Party; street blockages in Corso Vittorio Emanuele, close to the Parliament, an encampment beneath the French Embassy and the CIPE (a cross-ministerial body for economic planning).
At about 5 p.m. when the people's march was about to depart from Campo de'Fiori, the police tried to close all the entrances of the square to block it; heavy clashes between agents and demonstrators ensued at one of those, Via dei Giubbonari, involving and damaging the historical Campitelli section of the Democratic Party, which once symbolized the party's power over the masses in the capitol. Then, the police had to back off and the picket march proceeded through Via delle Botteghe Oscure to end up in Circo Massimo.
In the end, the day was another step forward for the Italian movements, which consolidated their common ground of social opposition, defied the alert police apparatus - which tried and failed to prevent another blunder to its control in the streets of Rome - and strongly challenged the Democratic Party, the only remaining pillar of a collapsing government, of a system of misery and a political representative sphere completely alien to the Italian people's grievances and uninterested in anything but her own self-perpetuation.
Source: infoaut