As France’s high school revolt peaked in October, Italy and Albania saw some of the worst violence outside France. In Italy, communist student groups modeled their actions on France, while militant far-left collectives took over cost-of-living marches. In Albania, a left-wing party leader joined the front lines of a revolt against Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Socialist government.
School occupations began in Turin on October 5 under the slogan “Let’s do as in France.” OSA (Opposizione Studentesca d’Alternativa, or Alternative Student Opposition), a communist high school organization, launched the occupations and called for “permanent” mobilization. OSA and its university counterpart, Cambiare Rotta (Change Course), a self-described communist youth organization, occupied schools in Turin and designated October 16 a national day of mobilization.
The conservative Italian daily Il Giornale describes them as youth organizations of Potere al Popolo (Power to the People) and the Rete dei Comunisti (Network of Communists), and frequent organizers of protests ending in clashes with police. Potere al Popolo, a far-left party founded as an electoral list in 2017, won 1.13 percent in the 2018 national election. Il Giornale calls it one of Italy’s last communist parties. The Rete dei Comunisti is a Marxist-Leninist network founded in Bologna in 1998.
On October 16, OSA’s “No Meloni Day” brought students into 40 cities, with clashes in Turin and Bologna. An OSA representative cited the mobilizations in France and Europe as the model. About 700 students marched in Bari, where participants said they were building toward an October 30 general strike called by USB (Unione Sindacale di Base, or Grassroots Union), a militant rank-and-file union.
On October 17, CGIL (Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro, or Italian General Confederation of Labour), the country’s largest labor confederation, held a national march in Rome with more than 100 associations in the La Via Maestra (The Main Road) alliance. Its Tuscan branch includes Arci and Anpi. Arci (Associazione Ricreativa e Culturale Italiana, or Italian Recreational and Cultural Association) is a left-leaning network of social clubs. Anpi (Associazione Nazionale Partigiani d’Italia, or National Association of Italian Partisans) represents the World War II anti-fascist resistance and its successors.
That day, cost-of-living marches called by Italia in Piazza (Italy in the Square), a social-media initiative describing itself as apolitical, turned violent in several cities. In Bologna, Carrelli Vuoti (Empty Shopping Carts) called the march with three local far-left groups: Cua, Crash, and Plat.
Cua stands for Collettivo Universitario Autonomo (Autonomous University Collective). In Italy, autonomous collectives are far-left groups independent of parties and unions, run by open assemblies, and favoring direct action such as occupations and unauthorized marches. On October 6, Cua led a Bologna march in solidarity with the French protests.
Laboratorio Crash (Crash Laboratory) is a self-managed social center whose earlier occupied buildings in Bologna were cleared by authorities. The city later assigned it the former municipal dairy building. A councilor from Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy), Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s party, now demands that the allocation be revoked. Plat, the Piattaforma di Intervento Sociale (Social Intervention Platform), was formed in 2020 by Crash, the radical union SI Cobas, and other groups to campaign on wages, housing, and climate.
Cua and Plat activists led an unauthorized march of about 500 people. The clashes injured 75 police officers; 5 people were arrested, including 4 minors.
In Turin, Italy’s national news agency ANSA reported that antagonist collectives, social centers, and the pro-Palestinian milieu took control of the march. Antagonist collectives are militant far-left groups opposed to the state and established parties. Social centers, often occupied buildings, serve as their political and cultural hubs. The pro-Palestinian milieu is the loose network of activist groups organizing pro-Palestinian street protests in Italy.
In Milan, ANSA reported that those attacking police were youths from outlying neighborhoods, some waving Albanian flags in support of the Tirana revolt. They were not black bloc, the masked militants who move together to attack police and property. Police described hundreds of youths from those neighborhoods and other provinces moving in small groups without recognizable coordination. Nationwide, 197 people were identified, 28 arrested, and 141 officers injured. An Italia in Piazza organizer accused antagonist groups of taking over the march.
Violence resumed in Milan on Sunday, October 18. Several hundred hooded protesters burned trash bins and looted Decathlon, Arc’teryx, and Vodafone stores. Police took 271 young people to police stations and arrested 32, including 23 minors and 13 foreign nationals. Another 28 were referred to judicial authorities. Meloni condemned the violence and called a government meeting.
In Albania, the protests grew from the months-long Flamingo Revolution, named for the flamingos of the protected Vjosa-Narta wetland. The movement opposed luxury tourism development there and on Sazan Island linked to Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law. Protests turned violent on October 13, when students threw bricks at the Education Ministry, and police responded with tear gas.
Protesters attacked more than eight public institutions, including the Prime Minister’s Office, Constitutional Court, and Bank of Albania, with stones, flares, and Molotov cocktails. By October 17, police chief Skënder Hita reported 167 arrests and 132 officers injured over five days.
Arlind Qori, leader of Lëvizja Bashkë (Together Movement), has attended the protests. Founded in 2022, the left-socialist party won one seat in the 140-member parliament in 2025, when Rama’s Socialist Party won 83. On October 13, Qori called on Albanians to rise with students. The next day, on a program of the Albanian daily Koha Jonë, he said the movement would bring down Rama “by any means”. On October 18, he told officers that most police side with the people in a revolution.
The Albanian revolt is not solely left-wing. The conservative Democratic Party, the main opposition with 50 seats, led by former Prime Minister Sali Berisha, also backs the students’ demands. Rama blamed the opposition for the violence. Hita said very few detainees were students and attributed the violence to individuals from Albania and abroad, without providing details.
Albanian flags on Milan’s streets showed support for the Tirana revolt. Organized left-wing groups were active in both countries: communist students and far-left collectives organized Italian marches, while Qori joined Albania’s protests and urged wider participation. Their involvement, however, does not establish who directed all the violence. Milan police described youths moving without recognizable coordination. Albania’s police chief said few detainees were students.
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