Student protests are gathering momentum in Florence, with students at around a dozen schools announcing occupations following the takeover of the Gramsci scientific high school on Monday and a march through the city streets last Friday.
From Tuesday, similar protests were announced at Alberti-Dante, Castelnuovo, Da Vinci, Duca d’Aosta, Galileo-Michelangiolo, Machiavelli-Capponi, Meucci, Pascoli, Peano, Porta Romana and Rodolico. The Buontalenti school’s branch campus has also reportedly been occupied.
In a statement signed by Studenti occupanti di Firenze (Florence’s occupying students), the demonstrators said they had decided to occupy their schools in protest against a government that, they argued, “prioritizes war at the expense of education”.
The students highlighted what they described as cuts of approximately 620 million euro to the school system over the 2026–28 period, warning of direct consequences for both the safety of school buildings and the quality of education.
Their complaints include classrooms that flood whenever it rains, a lack of adequate teaching materials, infestations of insects and rats, mould, faulty plumbing and heating systems, and missing or damaged air conditioning. They also denounced precarious working conditions for teachers, staff shortages, inaccessible buildings for people with disabilities and deteriorating facilities in need of urgent repairs.
Beyond infrastructure and funding, the protests target several government education policies, including the proposed cap on the proportion of foreign students in individual classes, Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara’s bill on sex and relationships education, and school-to-work training programmes.
The students have pledged to continue their mobilization and issued a list of demands. These include increased public spending on education, urgent maintenance and safety improvements to school buildings, and cuts to funding for rearmament and warfare.
The growing number of occupations signals mounting student discontent over school conditions and national education policy as demonstrators seek to make their demands heard across Florence.
