[Modena, Italy – 18 November 2019] More than 7,000 people have crammed together in the northern Italian city of Modena, as part of a growing “sardines” movement against the politics of the neo-fascist, Matteo Salvini, in which opponents attempt to beat the numbers he draws to his rallies.
Protesters converged under the rain at Piazza Grande on Monday night as the former italian interior minister campaigned in the city before crucial regional elections in Emilia-Romagna, a leftwing stronghold.
It followed a gathering of an estimated 12,000-15,000 people in Bologna last Thursday night amid a heavy downpour to counteract the launch of a campaign by the League candidate, Lucia Bergonzoni, to vie for the presidency of Emilia-Romagna as part of an alliance with the smaller far-right party Brothers of Italy, and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia.
The next demonstration is planned in the coastal city of Rimini on Sunday, where Salvini will inaugurate the League’s regional headquarters.
Salvini has pledged to “free Emilia-Romagna from the left” in the elections on 26 January. So this is the answer of the people against his neofascist agenda.
The sardines protests were devised by four friends from Bologna as a riposte to Salvini’s boasts about filling Italy’s squares with supporters. His coalition launched its campaign at an indoor sports arena in Bologna with the capacity to accommodate about 5,700 people.
“The limit was already defined and so we decided to try to gather 6,000 people at Piazza Maggiore,” Andrea Garreffa, one of the four friends, said. “In the end, between 12,000 and 15,000 people came. There were people of all ages, packed together like sardines in the rain. Their presence was a message of opposition to the hate that the far right is trying to bring to Emilia-Romagna.”
The images of packed squares in Bologna and Modena were shared widely on social media, prompting similar initiatives in Florence and Benevento, a town in the southern Campania region.
(Video posted on Twitter by @BenazziClara on 18 November 2019)
