Milan is quiet today. Damage remains visible on some of the busiest shopping streets, though most affected shops have already been repaired. Just the regular army checkpoints at the Duomo and in surrounding areas. I spoke with some soldiers, however, and they expect heavy reinforcements over the weekend. Several accounts linked to Antifa networks have announced more demonstrations planned for this Saturday and every weekend after that, in Milan, but also Bologna, Turin, Rome, Florence, Padua, Genoa, and Bari. The main one seems to be “M1710” (October 17th Movement), which has gained 16.8k (and counting) followers on IG in two days. Yesterday it published a “manifesto” declaring itself an independent movement of disaffected youth inspired by mostly leaderless uprisings over the past fifteen years, from the Arab Spring and Occupy to Hong Kong 2019. It tries to distance itself from existing far-left groups, deploying generic, anti-establishment rhetoric, yet nearly all of the 57 accounts it follows are openly antifa. Typical of how the far left has operated in Italy since the early 2010s, borrowing the Five Star Movement’s “no leaders, no party” branding to present itself as something new and exciting at every opportunity. (Full text below.)