Claim check: were the Milan rioters migrants? What police figures and reports show

After two days of looting and clashes in central Milan on October 17 and 18, several outlets and politicians described the rioters as migrants. The US site The Gateway Pundit headlined a video of the clashes as showing "Third-World Migrant Rioters," and Lega senator Claudio Borghi wrote of the people he filmed that there was "not half an Italian" among them, according to Il Sole 24 Ore. The figures released by police and the accounts of established outlets give a more mixed picture.

The claim

The Gateway Pundit article, published on October 19, describes the aggressive participants as street youths often of migrant background, second-generation groups and far-left activists. It cites unnamed Italian media and a statement attributed to Milan's police chief about crime in general, without a link. Borghi's remark is his own description of a video he posted; Il Sole 24 Ore presents it as his claim.

What the police figures show

• Arrests on Sunday, October 18: police detained 271 young people; of those taken to police stations, 32 were arrested, including 23 minors and 13 foreign nationals, and 28 more were reported to judicial authorities, Reuters reported. On those figures, foreign nationals made up fewer than half of those arrested. Reuters does not say how the minor and foreign-national counts overlap.
• Age: about 80 per cent of those stopped on Sunday were minors, police told Il Post.
• Organisation: police said the violent groups belonged to no organisation, student collective or social centre and acted spontaneously. Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi described them as groups of thugs, mostly minors, who gathered suddenly through social media (Il Sole 24 Ore).

A headline from the Italian agency Adnkronos says many minors and foreigners were among those held; Alethman News could not open that report and does not rely on any figures in it.

What the reports say about background

Citizenship is not the same as background, and several outlets say many of those involved came from immigrant families:

• Il Post says those involved were mainly minors of Italian origin and second-generation young people from the city's outskirts and the surrounding province.
• Ynetnews reports that many came from immigrant backgrounds, including families from North Africa and Eastern Europe, that some were born in Italy to families who had lived there for decades, and that most had travelled in from the suburbs. It also says police identified members of the organised radical left and students among the crowds.
• The Italian slang term maranza, used for groups of young people, appears in several accounts. Ynetnews and The Gateway Pundit both use it, and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini used it, together with social centres and the radical left, to describe those in the squares, Euronews reported.

What the record shows

The record does not support a description of the rioters as migrants in general. Police figures reported by Reuters show 13 foreign nationals among 32 people arrested on Sunday, and the large majority of those held were minors. At the same time, Il Post and Ynetnews report that many participants were the children of immigrants, some born in Italy and counted as Italian citizens. Police and the interior minister describe spontaneous groups gathered through social media rather than any organised movement, and Ynetnews says Italian authorities have found no evidence that a foreign organisation incited the unrest.

Context

The Milan clashes followed a march against the rising cost of living, part of a wider wave of protests over living costs, schools and housing in France, Belgium, Portugal and elsewhere in Europe, according to Reuters and Euronews. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's government is preparing a security decree that would extend preventive detention for minors and is sending 500 more soldiers to Milan, Reuters reported.