(AFP) – Hundreds of people protested in Milan on Friday ahead of the Winter Olympics as Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni hosted world leaders including US Vice President JD Vance. There has been anger in Italy over the presence of some agents from the US immigration enforcement agency ICE as part of security for the American delegation. ICE operations in a number of US cities have triggered large-scale protests, and the recent killings of two demonstrators have caused outrage.
Hundreds of students from high schools and universities in Milan gathered in front of the Politecnico di Milano university to protest against ICE. “This is all unacceptable for us,” Leonardo Schiavi, a protester, told AFP, referring to Vance’s visit and the presence of ICE agents. Giacomo Calvi said he was protesting the American “anti-immigration police, which are carrying out all kinds of violence in the United States”.
The Italian government has said the ICE agents will not have any operational role on its soil. The agents will be from ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit, which is a different division from the one accused of violence in the United States.
There was another demonstration with hundreds of participants close to Milan’s San Siro stadium, where the opening ceremony is taking place Friday, that protested against rising prices for housing. “These Olympics are a pain. They only serve to gentrify,” chanted several hundred protesters.
At her meeting with Vance on Friday, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, one of the European leaders closest to President Donald Trump, said sport and religion were “values that keep together Italy and the US, Europe and the US, Western civilisation”. Vance praised Meloni for Italy’s organisation of the Olympics and also welcomed “coming together around shared values”.
Meloni and Vance — a fervent Catholic who converted in 2019 — last met in Rome following the election last year of Pope Leo XIV, the first American pontiff.
© 2024 AFP
