Bologna, July 21, 2026 – The first news arrives of clashes between antagonists and the police, of the historic center devastated by the fury of the two hundred rioters who besieged the Prefecture first and then sowed chaos between via Ugo Bassi and Rizzoli, and the comment of Galeazzo Bignami, FdI group leader in the Chamber, is blunt. “Mayor Lepore is irresponsible. He must resign – Bignami states –. He has devastated Bologna and continues to do worse and worse.”
However, the clashes are the work of the usual and well-known antagonists, not the mayor or those who peacefully demonstrated in Piazza del Nettuno…
“But Lepore has fueled an incendiary climate and this is the result. And those who pay the price today are the people of Bologna and those who must defend our security, who are now targeted as a target to be hit. And the events of Sunday in Pilastro have nothing to do with what happened.”
The sit-in in the square had very different tones and very different participation, peaceful and composed. Or not?
“The sit-in was a political calculation made by the mayor and the PD on the backs of the citizens and Bologna. With the aim of strengthening ties with an extreme left that is contesting the mayor and the administration, exactly as happened with the Besta. After all, if you organize a square with the premise of asking for ’truth and justice’, you start from the premise that the police, in the intervention on Sunday in Pilastro, committed an injustice. And this is unacceptable: this undermines the work of men and women in uniform and shows how little trust the center-left parties have towards the police.”
And what political repercussions would this have?
“On a larger scale, it is the same pattern we saw with the Besta two years ago, when the mayor also lashed out against the carabinieri for stopping the perpetrator of a theft at the new schools construction site, contested by the extreme left occupation in the park. But not only that.”
PHOTOS Sit-in for Fakir, clashes with the police
Or?
“Messages like these, in a city declared unsafe like Bologna, as all available data shows, risk generating even more insecurity. But this is not accidental, because by doing so the PD and center-left want to reach the paradox of accusing the government of not guaranteeing enough security, when instead the executive does everything to ensure it. Just think of the equipment we have given to the police, including pepper spray. But here we return to the starting question: if the climate around their work is this, how can they be used with peace of mind?”
The Prosecutor’s Office is carrying out preliminary investigations on the two police officers and the four paramedics who intervened in Pilastro: this is the first case in which the ’criminal shield’ has been used, a rule wanted by FdI.
“It is good that this law, which I strongly supported, has also been applied to paramedics: it is clear proof that it was not designed only for the police. Now the Prosecutor’s Office has a reasonable time to decide how to proceed without sending notices of guarantee and especially without opening a criminal proceeding that would have taken months or perhaps years to close.”
Meanwhile, a debate has already opened on the containment maneuvers of the police in such cases: is more training needed to act better in similar contexts?
“Training and updating activities are already part of the police and carabinieri’s toolkit. Without a doubt, more and better can always be done, but applying this reasoning to the Pilastro case would mean contesting an operation that is still under investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office. And which, based on what has been reconstructed so far, seems to have taken place in a broader context than what emerged a few hours after the tragedy.”
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