Milan, Italy. Thousands of people marched in Milan on Saturday to protest housing costs and environmental concerns on the first full day of the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics.
Protest organisers and aims
The march was organised by grassroots unions, housing-rights groups and social centre community activists. Organisers said the demonstration aimed to highlight what they described as an increasingly unsustainable city model marked by rising rents and deepening inequality.
Housing pressures and property boom
The Olympics follow a decade in which Milan has seen a property boom after the 2015 World Expo. Activists said locals have been squeezed by rising living costs as an Italian tax scheme for wealthy new residents, alongside Brexit, has drawn professionals to the city.
Concerns over public spending and environmental impact
Some groups said the Olympics are a waste of public money and resources, pointing to infrastructure projects they argue have damaged the environment in mountain communities. A banner stretched across the street read: “Let’s take back the cities, let’s free the mountains.”
“I’m here because these Olympics are unsustainable — economically, socially, and environmentally,” said 71-year-old Stefano Nutini, standing beneath a Communist Refoundation Party flag. He said Olympic infrastructure had placed a heavy burden on mountain towns hosting events in what he described as the first widely dispersed edition of the Winter Games.
IOC response and protest symbolism
The International Olympic Committee said the Games are largely using existing facilities, making them more sustainable. At the head of the procession, about 50 people carried stylised cardboard trees to represent larches they said were felled to build a new bobsleigh track in Cortina d’Ampezzo.
“Century-old trees, survivors of two wars…sacrificed for 90 seconds of competition on a bobsleigh track costing 124 million (euros),” read another banner.
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