Protests are flaring up at universities, with faculties occupied from Milan to Naples

This morning’s occupation of a lecture theatre at the Bicocca University in Milan adds to the list of universities and schools joining the mobilisation campaign ahead of tomorrow’s student marches against the cost of living and in support of the right to education, which will take place alongside the USB general strike. The occupation of the lecture theatre at Bicocca follows that of the lecture theatre at the University of Milan and the occupations at the Caterina da Siena and Tito Livio secondary schools in Milan, organised by the Student Collectives, OSA, Cambiare Rotta and Milano in Movimento.

Yesterday evening in Rome, the Faculty of Humanities at La Sapienza University was occupied. In Turin, following a student assembly, the Luigi Einaudi Campus of the University was also occupied. In recent days, a group of students, together with the Demand Collective, occupied Palazzo Giusso, one of the campuses of L’Orientale University, “to protest against the high cost of living, the dismantling of public universities and the student housing crisis”.

The Porta di Massa campus of the University of Naples Federico II was also occupied by the Naples University Self-Organised Collective (CAU) and Political Ecology Naples (Ecopol). In mid-October in Pisa, several dozen students from the Scuola Normale staged a peaceful flash protest, occupying the steps of the academic institution leading to the hall where the opening ceremony for the 2026/2027 academic year was due to take place, to protest “against the cuts and the School’s lack of transparency” towards students regarding admission criteria.

A flash mob entitled ‘Against the housing crisis: from universities to town squares, let’s pitch our tents, towards the general strike on 30 October’ has taken place in recent days in Naples, Turin, Padua, Bologna, Parma and Florence. Dozens of schools have also been occupied from the north to the south of Italia. In Rome alone, students have ‘taken over’ historic secondary schools such as the Mamiani, the Tasso, the art school in Via Ripetta, the Argan art school, the Piaget technical college and numerous others. School occupations and protests have taken place in major Italian cities, including not only Milan but also, in particular, Florence, Naples, Bologna, Palermo and Cagliari.

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