Italian opposition seeks to capitalise on education protests

ROME, Saturday (AFP)

Italy’s leftwing opposition, bruised by its election defeat in April, is hoping to take advantage of protests against education spending cuts to regain the initiative against the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

The government is counting on the movement running out of steam before Berlusconi’s still high popularity is affected.

In less than a week the opposition has twice managed to mobilise demonstrations attended by hundreds of thousands of people. At the same time protests against the spending cuts, in the form of open air classes, university occupations and marches, continue nationwide on a daily basis.

“The reform has the merit of having succeeded in getting mothers to agree with their children, students with teachers, bridging the generation gap,” leftwing economist Tito Boeri wrote Friday in La Repubblica newspaper.

During a major demonstration in Rome Thursday mothers marched with their families and university staff with their students. Media reports have even spoken of parents, worried that their children will get a cut-price education, taking part in the occupation of buildings.

The plans provide for a return of the “single teacher” system in primary schools, under which each class has one teacher for all subjects. At the same time the school week will be cut from the present 29 to 31 hours down to 24, which will have a knock-on effect on the daily activities of parents.

Major cuts are scheduled in higher education, with only one in five staff leaving to be replaced.

The protests could not have come at better moment for the opposition as Berlusconi faces his first major social confrontation since being returned to power.

“The idea that Berlusconi would live a kind of permanent honeymoon with the country is over,” said former foreign minister Massimo D’Alema Friday.

“The first serious problems between the government and the citizens are starting to arise. The house of cards built by the government is collapsing.”.But the left wing Democratic Party (PD) of Walter Veltroni, the main opposition grouping, has to tread delicately.

“The PD has to succeed in making the junction with civil society,” French political scientist Marc Lazar who specialises in Italian politics told AFP.

“It needs to draw on the protest movement but it cannot go too far” because it wants to present the image of a party that is ready to govern.

It also has to deal with a spontaneous youth movement that refuses to be identifed with a particular political line. Berlusconi is still enjoying record levels of popularity but the reforms could bring risks.

“Could they be the banana skin on which the government will skid?” asked the economic daily Il Sole 24 Ore, like the pension reforms that plunged the first Berlusconi government into crisis at the end of 1994.

In the end though, the newspaper decided that answer to that question was “no”.

Philosopher Paolo Flores d’Arcais said it was too early to say whether the present movement would last or burn itself out.

“It is only the start. Berlusconi’s problem is that he does not have much room for manoeuvre (to damp down the discontent) because of the global crisis.” The next trial of strength is due to take place on November 14 with a protest by university staff and students.