Italians Rally in Rome to Protest Economic Policies

[BelgianMadCow]

Source: Bloomberg

By Andrew Davis and Lorenzo Totaro

April 4 (Bloomberg) -- Italians converged on Rome to protest that the government isn’t doing enough to protect jobs and benefits amid the nation’s worst recession in three decades.

About 200,000 people joined the rally, a police spokesman, who declined to be identified by name, said in the Italian capital today. Enrico Panini, head of organization for CGIL, Italy’s biggest labor union, said in a telephone interview that as many as 2.7 million people were involved.

“I woke up at 4 a.m. to come to Rome,” said Matteo Cascolo, 20, a student and part-time worker at a McDonald’s Corp. restaurant in Pisa, northern Italy. He said the government is allowing employers to cut salaries and benefits.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government plans 40 billion euros ($53 billion) of spending to try to overcome the recession. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said March 31 that Italy has the highest public debt in the euro region, and this has “restrained its discretionary fiscal action.”

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a3ddCgJXj4hQ&refer=home

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I'm sure everybody is well-informed of these small demonstrations by focus groups. :sarcasm:
Okay, a couple tens of thousands in London, a major strike in France and Greece, who's counting really.

Had a hard time sourcing this in english - and many of the EU papers have NOTHING on it.
BBC: naught, Guardian: zero, Le Monde: rien du tout, Der Spiegel & Frankfurter Allgemeine: nichts
El Pais: under international news, http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Miles/trabajadores/manifiestan/Berlusconi/elpepuint/20090404elpepuint_6/Tes
Hindu.com and Gulf News do carry it.

Here is the italian source article, for those that understand it (not me):
www.repubblica.it/2009/04/sezioni/economia/cgil-manifestazione/cgil-sabato/cgil-sabato.html

The truth is kept from us: they don't tell us exactly how bad it is ("banks are solvent") so we don't get enraged, and when we do get enraged by just the visible tip of the proverbial iceberg, that is relegated to the back pages as well.

[santamargarita]

1. Do the trains run on time?

:think:

[DemBones DemBones]

2. I'd like to see newsphotos, get an idea whether the

crowd was closer to 200,000 or 2.7 million.

But they'd have to be honest newsphotos. There was a massive strike in Rome several years ago which CNN photographed to appear smaller than it was, while the European papers took photos that showed more of the crowd.

Why do you think the Brit and European papers are ignoring this? G-20?