Monday, February 21, 2022

Italy: 200,000 students in the streets declared "No to the school of capitalists!"

"No to the school of capitalists", reads the banner.
On Friday 18th of February, under the slogan "No to the school of capitalists", approximately 200,000 school pupils held massive protests in more than 40 cities across Italy, demanding the government to end the obligatory work placements in the last three years of school.

The demonstrations, in which the Front of Communist Youth (Fronte dela Gioventú Comunista) has a leading role, were triggered after a student, 16-year-old Giuseppe Lenoci, died in a road accident on Monday while he was on board a truck for a school-work internship. 

Last month another student, 18-year-old Lorenzo Perrelli, was crushed to death by a steel girder of 150 kg while working in an internship for a private company.

Thousands of students gathered in Rome demanding the government to remove the Education Minister and scrap obligatory work experience programs for high-school students introduced by former prime minister, Matteo Renzi, back in 2015.

In Turin, tension and anger went out of control when a group of students tried to break into the local headquarters of industrial employers group, Confindustria, and were repelled by riot police forces, with some batons being wielded.

In many cases, the student protests have the support of teachers who stand in solidarity with their just demands.

The protests were directed not only at the school system itself, but also against the threat of an imperialist war. That is why, the demonstrators have demanded the immediate withdrawal of Italy from the aggressive imperialist NATO alliance.

IN DEFENSE OF COMMUNISM ©