Italy general strike turns violent in Vicenza, Turin and Mestre

Three protesters were injured, one hit in the head by a tear-gas canister, during clashes with police in Vicenza on Friday, as a nationwide general strike called by Italy's USB union brought marches to more than 50 cities, organisers said.

The strike, called against what unions described as the government's "war economy," rising living costs and the policing of young people and workers, also disrupted schools, transport, healthcare and public offices across the country.

In Turin, police used a water cannon for several seconds and charged a march by students and other protesters in Piazza Castello after some demonstrators approached barriers protecting the regional prefecture, Italian news agency ANSA reported.

In Mestre, near Venice, 7 police officers were lightly injured with cuts and bruises after protesters tried to force their way past a police cordon blocking a route the authorities had closed to the march, the local police chief said.

Tens of thousands of people marched in Milan, where some protesters climbed onto a motorway overpass to hang a banner and set off firecrackers, while more than 10,000 people demonstrated in Genoa and about 4,500 marched in Trieste, where port workers joined the protest. In Naples, a group of demonstrators entered the port.

Dockworkers in Ancona and other Italian ports also took part, linking the strike to a wider international protest at more than 100 ports in 17 countries against the transport of weapons. "We are asking that the ports don't become hubs of war," an activist from the Ancona dockworkers' union told ANSA, adding that no weapons currently pass through Ancona but that the union was acting in solidarity with colleagues elsewhere.

In Trieste, a USB organiser told the crowd the strike was "the start of a hot autumn," with speakers also addressing funding for schools and struggling industries such as the Electrolux plant in the area, according to La Stampa.