Reggio revolt

Reggio revolt
Part of Years of Lead
An image of the riots in Reggio Calabria in 1970-1971.
Date	July 5, 1970 – February 23, 1971
Location	Reggio Calabria, Calabria, Italy
Caused by	Local poverty, ill-conceived decentralization and the choice of Catanzaro as the region capital
Goals	Recognition of Reggio Calabria as capoluogo (regional capital)
Methods	Strikes, street rioting and road and railway blockades
Resulted in	Repression of the riots Establishment of the Regional Council of Calabria in Reggio Regional development (a railroad stump, the steelwork center, and the port in Gioia Tauro)
Parties to the civil conflict
Christian Democracy (Calabrian) Italian Social Movement National Vanguard Social Democratic Party Italian Anarchist Federation CISNAL Government of Italy Christian Democracy (National) Italian Communist Party CGIL
Lead figures
Francesco Franco Alfredo Perna Giuseppe Avarna Fortunato Aloi Emilio Colombo Fortunato Licandro Luigi Longo Luciano Lama
Casualties
Death(s)	According to official figures of the Italian Ministry of the Interior there were 3 dead; other sources mention 5 dead
Injuries	According to official figures of the Italian Ministry of the Interior there were 190 policemen and 37 civilians wounded; other sources mention hundreds of wounded
Arrested	Arrest and imprisonment of the revolt's leaders, like Francesco Franco

The Reggio revolt occurred in Reggio Calabria, Italy, from July 1970 to February 1971. The cause of the protests was a government decision to make Catanzaro, not Reggio, regional capital of Calabria. The nomination of a regional capital was the result of a decentralization programme of the Italian government, under which 15 governmental regions were created and given their own administrative councils and a measure of local autonomy.

Protest in Reggio Calabria exploded in July 1970 when the much smaller town of Catanzaro (with a population of 82,000 against 160,000 in Reggio) was chosen as the regional capital of Calabria. The people of Reggio blamed their rivals' success to "the Red Barons" in Rome, a group of influential centre-left Calabrian politicians from Cosenza and Catanzaro, including Deputy Prime Minister Giacomo Mancini.

On July 14, a general strike was called and five days of street fighting left one dead and several policemen injured. A force of 5,000 armed police and carabinieri was moved into the area. The national government ordered state-owned RAI TV not to report on the insurrection. Nevertheless, the revolt steadily picked up steam and sympathy.

Drawn out road and railway blockades damaged the entire country. Strikes, barricades and wrecked railway tracks forced trains from the north of Italy to halt two hours short of Reggio. Italy's main north-south autostrada, the Highway of the Sun, was closed off. When the port of Reggio was blocked, hundreds of lorries and railroad freight cars were forced to remain on the other side of the Straits of Messina.

The revolt was taken over by young neofascists of the Italian Social Movement (Movimento Sociale Italiano – MSI) backed by the 'Ndrangheta, a Mafia-type criminal organisation based in Calabria, the De Stefano 'ndrina in particular.Francesco Franco, a trade union leader from the National Italian Workers' Union (CISNAL) close to the neofascist movement became the informal leader of the rebel Action Committee and of the revolt. "Boia chi molla" () (Death to him who gives up) was the right-wing rallying cry during the revolt. Most of the Italian press labeled the demonstrators fascists and hooligans against the center‐left Government in Rome, but according to Time magazine the revolt cut across class barriers, quoting Reggio's mayor at the time, Pietro Battaglia, who declared that it was a "citizens' revolt".