M5S in the square against rearmament, Pd delegation present (without Schlein). Conte: we are in a hundred thousand
The opposition also rallies together at the presidium at the Pantheon against the new security decree. Dem, Five Star, Avs and +Europa exponents alongside the students, but not Iv and Action
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Flags of the 5 Star Movement, peace flags, a few scattered red flags, Palestinian keffiyehs, but also placards and banners against rearmament, in defence of the UN and calling for investments in education and health. The procession against the choices of the European Commission and the Italian government on international policy and investment in military spending moved from Piazza Vittorio Emanuele to the Fori Imperiali. "I am happy that the main opposition forces are present today because today we are laying a solid pillar to the construction of a government alternative. The Meloni government has sold out Italy to the needs of Germany on a project that will further disintegrate Europe and this is another failure of hers," Conte said.
Conte: there are a hundred thousand of us!
"One message struck me in particular, Mr. Bruno on social media: 'I am 93 years old, I have seen war, I don't know how long I have left to live but I want to come to the square to explain that war hurts'. Where are you Bruno? Here he is! You are not alone! There are a hundred thousand of us, they tell me'. Thus, with a tribute to what may be the oldest protester in the square, the leader of the 5 Star Movement, Giuseppe Conte, began his speech from the stage in the Imperial Forum.
The 'lonely' convocation
.The challenge launched by star leader Giuseppe Conte, with the 'solitary' convocation of the event, is twofold. On the one hand, the aim is to show that after having hit rock bottom in the 2024 European elections, when for the first time its lists fell below 10 per cent in a national election, the Movement is alive and well and is able to drag a few thousand activists and sympathisers into the square (and the dense avant-garde already in the square seems to demonstrate the resilience of the 5-star organisation); On the other hand, raising the flags of peace allows the ex-Grillini, now freed from the cumbersome presence of the founder, to act as a point of reference for a wider field, that of pacifists of the Catholic or radical leftist area. An important calling card in view of any negotiations with the other centre-left forces for alliances at local, regional or - in perspective - national level.
Conte: today we lay a pillar for alternative to Meloni
Dems in the delegation
.Among the political guests in the square and on the stage was also a delegation from the Democratic Party led by Senate group leader Francesco Boccia and composed of parliamentarians and members of the national secretariat (not the secretary Elly Schlein) plus the founding members of the Alleanza Verdi Sinistra, Nicola Fratoianni and Angelo Bonelli, and Maurizio Acerbo, current secretary of Rifondazione Comunista. Among the speakers at the Imperial Forum were activists, journalists and intellectuals not only strictly 'area' (such as Marco Travaglio, Tomaso Montanari, Barbara Spinelli) but active in the pacifist and Catholic world such as Alex Zanotelli and Flavio Lotti, from the environmentalist archipelago such as Giuseppe Onufrio of Greenpeace, from the ANPI with its president Gianfranco Pagliarulo, or from the world of culture and TV such as the historian Alessandro Barbero or the populariser of science Mario Tozzi. There will also be speeches by economist Jeffrey Sachs and Belgian Labour Party MEP Marc Botenga.
