ROME: Protesters burned images of US President Donald Trump and Italy’s premier Giorgia Meloni in Rome Saturday during a demonstration against the government’s judicial reform and the Middle East war.
A few thousand people joined a march in the Italian capital, initially organised against far-right Meloni’s planned reforms of the judiciary, which will be put to a referendum next weekend.
It also drew critics of the US-Israel war with Iran, with protesters decrying Meloni’s closeness with US President Donald Trump, even if Rome is not directly involved in the conflict.
A small group set fire to posters showing Meloni and Trump together, an AFP photographer witnessed.
The crowd, the majority of them trade unionists, left-wing groups and students, held aloft banners declaring “No to the Meloni government”, “No to war” and “No to the referendum”, alongside a smattering of Cuban, Iranian and Palestinian flags.
“Meloni describes herself as a patriot, but this is the most subservient government, the most sycophantic of American interests in decades,” protester Alessia Lotierzo, a 45-year-old from Rome, told AFP.
The reform being put to a referendum on March 22 and 23 would separate the functions of prosecutor and judge while also changing their oversight body.
