The Italian working class response to the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics in the first week of February 2026 was swift, organised and militant. As spectators arrived for the opening ceremony, the streets filled with chants of solidarity – with Palestine, and with workers in the United States facing intensifying racist state repression.
While Russia and Belarus were formally banned, Israel’s participation went unchallenged by those in power. The only opposition came from working class communities. Thousands took to the streets, denouncing the hypocrisy of a global spectacle that excludes some states for instigating war while accommodating one that commits ruthless, asymmetrical genocide against the native population. Reports that nearly half of all the Israeli competitors had actively supported the Zionist genocide and the role of the IDF increased the indignation. Resulting solidarity strikes also condemned the news that ICE immigration agents would accompany US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to the opening ceremony.
Workers rose up fully aware of their government’s position. Prime Minister Georgia Meloni labelled protesters ‘enemies of Italy’. But many Italians recognise that their real enemy is the state apparatus protecting bourgeois interests while eroding living standards for the proletariat at home while waging imperialist war abroad. No better is this exemplified than in their unyielding confrontations with police forces.
Since mass mobilisations following the 7 October Palestinian uprising began in Italy, the government has repeatedly used violence to suppress Italian working class movements – pro-Palestinian or otherwise – even against school students. In Turin, over 50,000 people mobilised against the forced closure in December 2025 of Askatasuna (the word means ‘freedom’ in Basque) a long-standing internationalist social centre, and police immediately met them with brute force. However, this force was promptly met with greater resistance.
Videos circulating online show both the scale of state violence and the community’s head-on opposition. In one, protesters armed with pro-Palestine banners and spray paint push police lines back until officers are pinned against a wall, attempting to strike back with batons and shields. Despite the brutality that their government has been certain to send at them, the Italian working class remains unyielding in its solidarity with Palestine.
Italian unions have adopted this same militancy. On 6 February, dockworkers across Italy joined a coordinated international day of strike. This spanned more than 20 Mediterranean ports, targeting war and rearmament in the region and, nationally, against port privatisation and poor working conditions.
The effects were noted even before the strike began. Ships known to carry weapons to Israel reportedly altered their routes in anticipation. Workers in Ravenna were clear about their intentions to expand the movement’s influence: ‘Today it’s the ports, tomorrow it will be the entire logistics sector, and then it will be all workers’.
Students and other workers joined the strikes, waving Palestinian and Cuban flags in a distinct expression of anti-imperialist solidarity. These actions reflect a political understanding that the fight against imperialism abroad is inseparable from the fight against exploitation at home. This stands in sharp contrast to Britain where major unions are moribund, trailing the Labour left – despite the Labour government’s continued support for the Zionist entity – rather than organising any militant resistance.
By confronting the state without hesitation, the Italian working class provides a powerful example of what anti-imperialist solidarity can be – confrontational, collective and uncompromising.
