As of late Thursday, there were 1,600 tractors parked at protest camps, such as Passo Corese, on the outskirts of Rome, with many expected to arrive by Monday, said Giancarlo Carapellotti, a spokesman for Betrayed Farmers, a movement that is organizing the protests.
Banners at the farmers’ strongholds included “Unfair Market — You Are Taking Away Our Dignity!” and “No Farmers, No Food!”
A demonstration planned in central Rome on Friday was called off at the last minute, but a convoy of four tractors in the red, white and green of the Italian Tricolor trundled toward the Colosseum and the Circus Maximus in the morning, while commuters braced for chaos on Friday night, when hundreds of farmers were due to circle the city’s ring road.
The farmers are demanding a meeting with Meloni or her agriculture minister — and brother-in-law — Francesco Lollobrigida. If not, they have threatened to blockade the capital, drawing critical parallels with Benito Mussolini’s 1922 March on Rome.
‘We are capable of becoming rude’
Dozens of farmers in the north have, meanwhile, converged on the venue of Italy’s iconic music festival in San Remo, after activists from the upstart populist Agricultural Redemption movement were invited — and then uninvited — to air their grievances on stage during the X-Factor style TV show watched by up to 16 million people.
On Thursday a small group of tractors headed to San Remo in the hope of being allowed on stage, before RAI, the state broadcaster staging the competition, said it was “impossible.”
