MILAN — Protesters set trash bins afire and police responded with hydrant sprays in downtown Rome Tuesday night, part of a day of public outpouring of anger against virus-fighting measures like evening shutdowns for restaurants and bars and the closures of gyms and theaters — a sign of growing discontent across Europe with renewed coronavirus restrictions.
Pedestrians and motorists returning home from work in Rome were taken by surprise when protesters, some of them hooded and members of an extreme-right political group, set afire to trash bins in Piazza del Popolo, overturned parked motor scooters and mopeds and hurled smoke bombs, state TV reported. Police vans unleashed torrents of water to disperse them.
It was a fifth straight night of violent protest in Italy, following recent local overnight curfews in metropolises including Naples and Rome.
After protests Monday night turned violent in the financial capital of Milan, police arrested 28 people. And in Italy’s industrial northern city of Turin, at least 11 were arrested, including two who smashed the window of a Gucci boutique and stripped a mannequin of its lemon yellow trousers.
All of Europe is grappling with how to halt a fall resurgence of the virus before its hospitals become overwhelmed again. Nightly curfews have been implemented in French cities. Schools must close at 6 p.m. Schools have been closed in Northern Ireland and the Czech Republic. German officials have ordered de-facto lockdowns in some areas near the Austrian border and new mask-wearing requirements are popping up weekly across the continent, including a nationwide requirement in Russia.
“We would all like to live like before, but there are moments where you have to make tough decisions,” French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said Tuesday as the government held emergency meetings on the pandemic.