Italian cities hit by 'social strike' protest

ROME, Nov. 14 (UPI) -- A "social strike" of disparate protesters across Italy Friday included demonstrators climbing the walls of Rome's ancient Colosseum.

Thousands of people rallied in the streets of Rome, Milan, Padua and elsewhere for a variety of causes. Small unions upset with government labor reforms, students and immigration opponents were among those represented.

Riot police clashed with demonstrators, largely students, in Padua and Milan, and tear gas was thrown at protesters attempting to break a police cordon. Traffic in Naples was snarled by protesters, and vandalism, and the scaling of the Colosseum by a group of about 10 protesters, began after an unsuccessful march on the offices of Italian Premier Matteo Renzi's center-left Democratic Party. Adding to the chaos Friday was a licensed rally in Milan by Italy's biggest trade union in support of a strike at a steel mill in northern Italy, and transport strikes, disrupting rail, air and bus service around the country.

Renzi's government is beset with problems including a 12 percent national unemployment rate, with the rate among young people at 42 percent; a recession that has worsened race relations at a time when hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa are arriving in the country; and attempted solutions that include reforms of labor laws which anger unions.