Tens of thousands march in Rome over Italy migration fight
Rome split between far-right anti-migration marchers and a larger pro-migration crowd, as Parliament weighs a petition on remigration and the government expands work visas.
Tens of thousands of people filled Rome in rival marches that turned the Italian capital into a test of who gets to define national identity, public order and migration policy. On one side, far-right protesters pushed a hard line against newcomers. On the other, a larger pro-migration crowd, joined by left-wing groups and trade unions, argued for rights and inclusion.
The anti-migration march drew about 3,000 far-right protesters from across Italy, who sang the national anthem and repeatedly raised fascist salutes while chanting references to Benito Mussolini. Reuters and the Associated Press both reported the salutes, underscoring how openly extremist symbols surfaced in a demonstration tied to the Remigration and Reconquest banner. The march wound through central Rome near Prati, Piazza della Libertà, Via Cola di Rienzo and Piazza Risorgimento, with St. Peter’s in the background.
That far-right initiative has already cleared the 50,000-signature threshold needed to force parliamentary debate in the Italian Parliament. Organizers have claimed the petition has gathered more than 150,000 signatures, far beyond the minimum, turning what was once a fringe slogan into a live political issue. Critics say the proposal would go further than border enforcement, because it calls for coercive returns, incentives to leave Italy and other measures that could reach legal residents and people of migrant background.
Police deployed thousands of officers to keep the two camps apart, and no violence was reported. Still, the marches disrupted daily life in the center of the city: dozens of bus routes were diverted and the Vittorio Emanuele stop on Metro A was closed.
The protests also exposed the gap between anti-migration rhetoric and the government’s own labor needs. Giorgia Meloni’s government approved nearly 500,000 work visas for non-EU nationals for 2026 through 2028, including 164,850 for 2026 alone, as Italy looks for workers in sectors hit by shortages. That policy, set against the hardline street politics of the far right and pressure from the League, leaves Meloni balancing coalition politics with the demands of employers and the legal limits of discrimination law.
The Remigration and Reconquest brand was publicly consolidated by militant far-right groups in September 2025 in Grosseto, a sign of how quickly the movement has organized. Saturday’s marches showed that migration is no longer only a policy dispute in Italy. It has become a struggle over identity, democratic norms and who can claim to speak for the nation.
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