In Val di Susa, an act of violence that far too many on the left regard as an extension of dissent

On Saturday, Chiomonte and the Susa Valley were, yet again, the scene of extremely violent clashes between rival groups – who had travelled from various parts of Italy and Europe – and the police forces stationed to guard the TAV construction site. Nothing new, unfortunately. For almost twenty years, particularly in summer, certain violent fringe groups have been gathering in the valley to attack the construction site using stones, firecrackers, Molotov cocktails and homemade devices. All this forms part of a movement in which the Turin-based protest movement, including the group linked to the Askatasuna social centre, has played a significant political and organisational role for years. Specific responsibility for Saturday’s attacks will, of course, have to be established by the investigators.

Many people ask me why, after twenty years, we have still not managed to prevent all this from happening. Part of the answer can be found in the words of Lucia Musti, Attorney General at the Turin Court of Appeal, who spoke of a ‘grey area’ – even among the educated and the middle classes – capable of viewing these antagonists with a certain degree of leniency, mistaking them for, or transforming them into, the new partisans.

To compare those who storm a construction site and attack the police to the partisans who died in those mountains to drive out the Fascists and Nazis is, in my view, nothing short of blasphemy. And yet, over the past twenty years, there have been intellectuals, writers and artists who have shown solidarity with the No Tav movement and who have not always been able – or willing – to draw a sufficiently clear line between the reasons for the protest and the violent methods employed by some of its fringe elements. Often, to tell the truth, without fully understanding what – or whom – they were showing solidarity with.

There are at least two simple questions to which even the most lenient supporters of the movement have never provided a convincing answer.

Why all this fuss over a train?

And why has a movement that claims to want to protect the environment and shift traffic from road to rail focused almost all its efforts on opposing the new railway line, whilst devoting incomparably less energy to the second Fréjus motorway tunnel?

The second tunnel tube was opened on 28 July 2025. It is not true that this has formally doubled the tunnel’s capacity: traffic continues to be organised on one lane in each direction, now separated for safety reasons. Yet a glaring political contradiction remains. All over the world, environmentalists are fighting to replace road transport with rail; in Italy, however, the most radical, stubborn and often violent campaign has been waged against rail infrastructure, whilst road infrastructure has been challenged in a much more subdued manner. This is the great contradiction of these ‘reverse’ environmentalists.

And yet, over the past twenty years, these questions have rarely been put to the movement’s leaders. Even the political parties that have supported the No Tav campaign have often preferred not to grapple with this contradiction. Meanwhile, it seems we have become accustomed to the violence: the usual, hypocritical and predictable statements of solidarity with the police – who are the real heroes of these past twenty years – arrive, and the very next day everything starts all over again as before.

Meanwhile, the timeframe for completion of the project has been extended. Commissioning is now scheduled for by the end of 2033. This is not solely due to the No Tav hooligans, of course: the hesitations, second thoughts and lengthy review imposed by the ‘yellow-green’ and ‘yellow-red’ governments have also contributed to slowing down the project’s progress.

The right is using the clashes to attack the left. Whilst formally condemning the violence, a section of the left continues, however, to maintain a politically ambiguous relationship with a movement that has never fully severed its ties with its most aggressive fringe elements. At the time of writing, Elly Schlein has not personally commented on Saturday’s events, although other PD leaders and officials have condemned the attacks. The secretary’s silence remains a serious political and institutional blunder, particularly for someone aspiring to the premiership.

Gone are the days when Turin had a mayor like Sergio Chiamparino, at the forefront of defending a project of strategic importance for his city and for Italy, and equally firm in his opposition to any form of violence. According to initial reports, Saturday’s attacks were led mainly by militants who had travelled from outside the valley, including numerous foreigners. These groups are often difficult to identify, and are likely to reappear next year for what we might call, with sad irony, the ‘Chiomonte Palio’.

I wonder whether any of the political leaders who have voiced their outrage to the press agencies will also find the time and the courage to travel to Chiomonte, to send a concrete message of solidarity to the men and women of the police, the Carabinieri, the Guardia di Finanza and the army who, 365 days a year and for far too many years now, have been ensuring the safety of the workers on the construction site.

On the French side, however, there is no permanent presence comparable to that deployed in Val di Susa. This, too, should raise some questions about the price that Italy, its law enforcement agencies and its taxpayers continue to pay for a pattern of violence that too many people, for too long, have chosen to regard as merely an extension of dissent.