Meloni says nowhere can be “exempt from legality”as opposition calls for right-wing government to apply same “zero tolerance” approach to CasaPound.
Italian police on Thursday carried out an eviction order for the Leoncavallo social centre, a long-standing leftwing squat in Milan, in an operation overseen by the interior ministry.
Hailing the eviction of the historic centro sociale, prime minister Giorgia Meloni wrote on social media: “In a constitutional state, there cannot be free zones or areas exempt from legality,” adding: “Illegal occupations are a threat to security, to citizens, and to communities that respect the rules.”
Zero tolerance
Interior minister Matteo Piantedosi said the eviction showed the right-wing government’s “zero tolerance” for squatting, claiming the move “marks the end of a long season of illegality”.
Deputy premier and transport minister Matteo Salvini also hailed the eviction, while taking a swipe at the opposition left, writing on X: “Decades of tolerated illegality, and often supported by the left: now things are finally changing. The law is the same for everyone: out!”
At the time of the eviction on Thursday morning there was nobody inside the social centre which was formed 50 years at a disused factory on Via Leoncavallo before moving in 1994 to its current location on Via Antoine Watteau.
Over the years, Leoncavallo has hosted countless cultural events, readings, talks and concerts.
Milan mayor Beppe Sala, of the centre-left Partito Democratico (PD), expressed his annoyance at not being notified in advance of the eviction operation.
“Yesterday I was at Palazzo Marino, busy with work meetings” – Sala told reporters – “I delegated the deputy commander of the local police to represent me in the committee for order and security, which, as usual, meets every Wednesday. At that meeting, no mention was made of any executive eviction for the Leoncavallo social centre.”
Historic and social value
Describing Leoncavallo as being of “historic and social value” to Milan, Sala said the city council should have been informed about “such a delicate operation”.
He also pointed out that an eviction had been scheduled on 9 September and that his administration had been in talks with Leoncavallo officials “to ensure the centre’s entire initiative is fully legal.”
Giuseppe Roccisano, secretary of the Sinistra Italiana (Italian Left) in Milan, said that “evicting 50 years of the city’s history in the middle of August and without any warning is disguised as a show of strength, but it is an act of weakness and cowardice.”
Open space for culture
“Leoncavallo has been an important part of Milan’s history, representing an open space for socialisation and culture for many generations,” Alessandro Capelli, Milan secretary of the PD, said, noting pointedly that the squat occupied illegally by the far-right group CasaPound “remains serenely in its post in Rome.”
In a Facebook post, Francesca Cucchiara, city councillor for Europa Verde (Green Europe), also noted that the eviction had been scheduled for 9 September.
“Obviously, it wasn’t a mistake or an oversight. They knew full well that hundreds of people would gather there on 9 September” – Cucchiara wrote – “Because they know—even if they don’t say it—that the Leoncavallo is a place dear to many. And that over the years, it has been frequented by countless people, including those who are now rejoicing at its eviction.”
She said that it was almost made her smile to see Salvini talking about legality being restored, “As if people had forgotten that he used to go to Leoncavallo, too. As if we didn’t know that, in the meantime, CasaPound has been squatting illegally in Rome for years and continues to do so without any threat of eviction.”
In 2019, Rome city council, under mayor Virginia Raggi of the populist Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S), passed a motion calling for the “immediate eviction” of CasaPound from the building it has occupied since 26 December 2003.
The motion called for the “intervention of the interior ministry, the prefect and police chief” to evict CasaPound from the building on Via Napoleone III, not far from the central Termini station, in the city’s multi-ethnic Esquilino district.
Raggi said the city was “ready” to evict CasaPound “as soon as the [interior] ministry decides”, adding that she would “count on government support” for the move.
Salvini, then serving as interior minister under former premier Giuseppe Conte, said on more than one occasion that evicting CasaPound was “not among the priorities” of his ministry.
During his tenure in the Viminale, Salvini oversaw a campaign of evictions of abandoned buildings in Rome, many of them occupied by migrants.
Today CasaPound still illegally occupies the same former government building, owned by the Agenzia del Demanio, the Italian public body responsible for the management of state-owned heritage properties.
Photo Matteo Piantedosi X
