Eggs were thrown at Italian PM Matteo Renzi’s staff car as he arrived at a new Alcatel-Lucent factory in northern Italy on November 6.
It was the second time this week that eggs were thrown towards PM Matteo Renzi as tensions in Italy mount over plans that will make it easier for companies to fire people.
Trade union activists, carrying signs saying “no unfair dismissal” and “tax the rich, jobs for everyone”, gathered outside the French telecommunications company’s new plant in Monza, where Matteo Renzi gave a speech calling for “crucial” investment in technology, both within Italy and the EU, and for the eurozone to break from the shackles of democracy.
Eggs were thrown at Italian PM Matteo Renzi’s staff car as he arrived at a new Alcatel-Lucent factory
Matteo Renzi was reportedly unscathed by the attack and hustled into the building through a side door, Ansa reported.
Matteo Renzi’s pithy rejoinder that “if they throw eggs, I’ll make crepes” did nothing to calm the controversy.
The egg attack comes a few days after scuffles broke out between protesters and police on November 3 in Brescia, where PM Matteo Renzi gave a speech to local industrialists.
Unions are incensed about Matteo Renzi’s so-called Jobs Act, a series of labor reforms which will make it easier for companies to hire, but also fire, people.
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Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski was attacked with an egg by a Ukrainian man when he visited the site of a 1943 massacre of Poles in neighboring Ukraine on Sunday, police said.
The egg attack followed a move by the Polish parliament last week to recognize the massacre by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) during World War Two as “ethnic cleansing bearing the hallmarks of genocide”.
The move upset Ukrainian nationalists who view the UPA as heroes and freedom fighters.
On Sunday, Bronislaw Komorowski visited the western Volyn region and attended mass at a Catholic church.
President Bronislaw Komorowski was attacked with an egg by a Ukrainian man when he visited the site of a 1943 massacre of Poles in Ukraine
As he emerged from the church “a young man from the crowd tapped his shoulder with his hand in which he was holding a crushed egg”, police said in a statement.
The 21-year-old man, a resident of Ukraine s southern Zaporizhia region, has been detained and faces hooliganism charges and up to three years in prison, they said.
It was unclear whether the man belonged to any of Ukraine s nationalist groups, the largest of which, Svoboda (Freedom) won dozens of seats in parliament last year, becoming a major political force.
Svoboda has criticized the Polish parliament s decision but said it would not seek to disrupt Bronislaw Komorowski s visit.
The territory of Volyn was long disputed by Poland and Ukraine. Historians believe tens of thousands of people died in the massacre during the wartime Nazi occupation.
Seventy years later, public opinion in Ukraine remains split on the insurgent movements which co-operated with the Nazis in hope of driving out the Soviet government and creating an independent Ukrainian state.
In the last days of his presidency in 2010, former Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko awarded wartime nationalist leader Stepan Bandera the title “Hero of Ukraine”.
The award was annulled by a court under his successor, current President Viktor Yanukovich.
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