Alongside the rest of Europe, Italy is in the grip of a renewed wave of the coronavirus and has responded by progressively tightening lockdown measures across the country. But first-wave slogans promoting resilience have given way to a sense of fatigue, which spilled over into anger in late October as the government announced new closures. The protests—led by owners of small businesses and restaurants, as well as self-employed professionals and seasonal workers in the catering and tourism sectors—have not yet surged into a mass movement, partly because the government quickly announced new economic rescue packages for those affected within these labor categories. The participation of violent fringes and the far-right, as well as the media’s focus on them, also contributed to the fragmentation of the protests.
Still, discontent remains palpable. Market traders took to the streets in Naples upon the announcement of a strict lockdown in mid-November. Restaurant owners from Tuscany gathered in Rome after a 10-day march. Earlier, arts and entertainment workers took to the streets with empty equipment trunks, symbolizing canceled events and precarious contracts. For the government, it is a challenging balancing act between protecting citizens’ health and the country’s economy. Italy’s economy relies on a significant level of informal work and many smaller businesses, both categories that have fallen through the cracks of efforts to stave off individual economic costs of the pandemic. Several regions hit hard by the virus were already grappling with high levels of unemployment pre-pandemic.
