The hooded guerrillas' attack on the TAV construction site in Chiomonte has reignited political conflict. The centre-right went on the offensive, demanding "unanimous" condemnation and accusing parts of the centre-left of tolerating the violent fringes of certain movements. The accusation also came from Forza Italia leader Antonio Tajani, who, while expressing solidarity with law enforcement, charged the left with being "increasingly tolerant, if not outright complicit, with thugs, violent groups and subversive organisations, from Bologna to the Val di Susa." Thoughts for the injured law enforcement officers were, however, bipartisan.
They also came from the highest offices of the state, beginning with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni ("those who serve Italy will never be left alone"). "Hatred is not protest and can find no justification whatsoever," stressed Speaker of the Chamber Lorenzo Fontana. The President of the Senate, Ignazio La Russa, in addition to expressing solidarity with the Carabinieri and police, expressed his hope that "those responsible for these serious incidents be identified and held accountable for their actions." Lega leader Matteo Salvini called for a "heavy hand" to be used against them. But there were also those, such as Piedmontese Italia Viva senator Silvia Fregolent, who sent a message to both the Lega leader and Meloni that "the government has sold security decrees as the solution to everything," urging them to "stop running electoral campaigns on security and start genuinely guaranteeing it."
Italia Viva leader Matteo Renzi was also harsh in condemning the "criminals who must pay" for the violence carried out. Azione leader Carlo Calenda, meanwhile, urged everyone to avoid any form of "proximity between administrators and parliamentarians and these delinquents," which "cannot be tolerated, in Bologna as in the Val di Susa." In the opposition, meanwhile, the distancing was unequivocal, from the PD to AVS to the M5S. "Dissent," stressed PD security spokesperson Matteo Mauri, "can never be transformed into aggression or intimidation. One defends one's ideas through dialogue and respect for the rules, not through violence."
"I condemn this without ifs or buts," stated Angelo Bonelli, adding that "the defence of territory, the environment and community rights is achieved through democratic mobilisation and non-violence. Those who use violence harm all of us." A similar argument was made by M5S parliamentarians Chiara Appendino, Antonino Iaria and Elisa Pirro. "Those who commit acts of violence are not protesting: they are breaking the law," they observed, "and they are doing a favour to those who want to defend the Turin-Lyon line, because attention is shifted away from the futility of a project with out-of-control costs and the resulting waste of public money."
"Useful idiots of violence," is how Enrico Borghi (IV) defines them. And in the background, alongside the aftermath of the clashes in Bologna following the Fakir case, the controversy also remains over the bill on the criminal liability of minors, which the PD has attacked and accused with multiple voices of dismantling juvenile justice. "I hope," goes the caustic accusation from FdI's Senate group leader Lucio Malan, "that those responsible for the clashes are identified and punished according to the law, even if they are minors and even if they turn out to be the children of some of those notables to whom PD deputies are referring when they say that with Giorgia Meloni 'even your children can go to prison'." Renzi also weighed in on the issue today: "If we want to make young people more liable and more responsible, then let's also lower the voting age to 16."
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