Thousands of people took to the streets of Milan this Saturday (7) in a protest against the high cost of living and environmental concerns on the first full day of the Milan-Cortina Winter Games.
The march, organized by unions, housing rights groups and community activists from social centers, seeks to highlight what activists call an increasingly unsustainable city model, marked by skyrocketing rents and growing inequality.
The Olympics cap a decade in which Milan has experienced a property boom following the 2015 World Expo, with local residents pressured by rising costs of living while an Italian tax regime for wealthy new residents, coupled with Brexit, attracts professionals to the financial capital.
Some groups also argue that the Olympics are a waste of public money and resources, pointing to infrastructure projects that they say have harmed the environment in mountain communities.
A banner stretched across the street read: “We will take back the cities, we will liberate the mountains.”
“I’m here because these Olympics are unsustainable — economically, socially and environmentally,” said Stefano Nutini, 71, under a Communist Refoundation Party banner.
He argued that Olympic infrastructure imposed a heavy burden on mountain towns hosting events in this first widely dispersed edition of the Winter Games.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) highlights that the Games are mostly using existing facilities, making them more sustainable.
At the front of the procession, around 50 people carried stylized cardboard trees to represent larch trees that they said were felled to build a new bobsled track in Cortina d’Ampezzo.
“Centennial trees, survivors of two wars… sacrificed for 90 seconds of competition on a bobsled track that cost 124 million (euros)”, read another banner.
March takes place under tight security
According to police estimates, more than 5,000 people participated in the march.
The protesters left the central Medaglie d’Oro square to travel almost four kilometers to the Corvetto neighborhood, in the southeast quadrant of Milan, a historically working-class region.
A demonstration last weekend by the extreme left in the city of Turin turned violent, with more than a hundred police officers injured and almost 30 protesters arrested, according to a report by the Ministry of the Interior.
Saturday’s protest follows a series of actions in the run-up to the Games, including demonstrations on the eve of the opening ceremony that denounced the presence in Italy of US ICE agents and what activists describe as the social and economic burdens of the Olympic project.
Greenpeace also organized a protest against the sponsorship of the Olympic Games by the oil giant Eni, on Thursday (5).
The march takes place under tight security as Milan welcomes world leaders, athletes and thousands of visitors to the global sporting event, including US Vice President JD Vance, who was booed during the Games’ opening ceremony.
