Europe

Home page

Europe

Italian police clash with anti-gov't protesters, 3 injured

04 November 2014 04:13 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Three people were injured in clashes between protesters and police in Italy on Monday while Prime Minister Matteo Renzi was speaking at a meeting of entrepreneurs in the northern city of Brescia, local reports said, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

A group of about 200 protesters, who were not part of an official demonstration organized by Italy's main metalworkers labor union FIOM, tried to break through the police line to enter the building where Renzi was attending the conference.

The security forces countercharged by pushing back the protesters, who threw stones and bottles against them. Two policemen and a protester were wounded, though not seriously, according to local newspaper Giornale di Brescia.

The demonstration was organized against the economic policies carried out by the Renzi government and to especially oppose a labor law which is going through parliamentary process for final approval.

Renzi restated on Monday that his center-left government "will not give up a millimeter" on the labor reform, adding he may ask the lower house a confidence vote to help push the law through.

The reform is aimed at making the Italian job market smoother, but according to labor unions it would significantly reduce job protections for new employees.

"The prime minister has taken a wrong path that divides the country," Italy's main labor union CGIL said in a statement on Monday.

"We would like to hear a little more consideration on the mistakes of finance and business," CGIL added stressing that the government "still lacks job-creation policies as well as an industrial policy."

"There is a design to divide the labor world ... but there is not a double Italy, one of the workers and one of the employers. There is only one undividable Italy," Renzi said in his address to the Brescia meeting and in response to the protesters.

Italian national statistics institute Istat said in a report released last week that 3.2 million citizens in the country were unemployed in September, the highest level since 2004.