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A young protester was filmed being knocked off her feet after riot cops in Italy blasted her with a water cannon as violence in neighboring France seeped across the border.
Wild footage shows the female demonstrator, dressed in red and carrying a handbag, getting sent flying as police targeted her amid far-left protests in the northern city of Bologna.
The woman was walking confidently near the front of the crowd, wearing bright clothing, before a direct blast of high-pressure water sent her slamming onto the ground.
The clip is believed to have been filmed over the weekend, as protests erupted across major Italian cities, including Milan and Bologna, following growing public anger over rising inflation, housing costs, stagnant wages, and general malaise.
While far smaller than the riots in France, where almost 2,500 arrests were made over the weekend, the unrest in Italy saw police clash with protesters throwing stones and looting stores.
In Milan’s central Piazza Duomo, police in riot gear fired tear gas and deployed water cannons after several hundred hooded protests smashed store windows and set trash cans on fire.
Italian police detained 271 young people during unrest in Milan on Sunday, the second day of violence.
Of those taken to police stations, 32 were arrested, including 23 minors and 13 foreign nationals, police said on Monday. Another 28 people were reported to judicial authorities.
The unrest followed similar clashes on Saturday in northern cities including Milan, Bologna, Brescia, Bergamo and Turin, where 28 protesters were arrested, according to a police report released on Sunday.
Italy’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, denounced the violence, calling on opposition leaders to unequivocally condemn violent acts and property damage.
Italian police use a water cannon against a young girl dressed in red who had joined a group of far-left rioters in Bologna.
The water cannon sent her flying pic.twitter.com/OdzEgWY9lH
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) October 21, 2026
“Demonstrating is a right. Setting our cities ablaze is not,” she said.
It represents the biggest test yet faced by Meloni, who heads into an election next year as the head of Italy’s longest-serving single continuous government in modern history.
With Post wires
