The closure of its factories hit Sesto hard, but when the perpetrator of the Berlin truck attack was shot there, the former leftwing stronghold turned right

Gramsci Avenue, May Day Square, Karl Marx library … even today the streets of Sesto San Giovanni recall its past as the “Stalingrad of Italy”. For more than seven decades, this suburb of Milan was ruled by the Communist party and its political heirs, but things have radically changed since the election of the new rightwing mayor, Roberto Di Stefano.

Begging, bivouacking in parks or streets and drinking alcohol in the open have all been banned. Those breaking the rules are expelled, and over the past year that has been the fate of more than 200 people – most of them homeless, street vendors or migrants.

“Before I came to power, there was a big problem of urban decay,” says Di Stefano when we meet in his office in City Hall, a building designed in the 1970s by communist architect Piero Bottoni to resemble a blast furnace. “The city was clearly abandoned to itself, there were no checks and inspections on the territory and in public facilities. If we have reached 230 expulsions in eight months, it is proof that something was wrong.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A worker at the Falck steel plant in 1955. Photograph: Mondadori via Getty

This once industrial city used to be the home of four large metalwork factories: Falck, Ercole Marelli, Magneti Marelli and Breda. Unsurprisingly, it also hosted a large, left-leaning and highly unionised working class. In the 1950s, more than half of Sesto’s 32,000 inhabitants were Communist party members. Since then, the population has more than doubled. For 72 years the left ruled the city uninterrupted.

Between the 1950s and late 1980s, Communist-led councils built public housing and guest houses for workers flocking to the cities. They built nurseries and organised summer camps for the workers’ children, and opened a music and dance school catering to the working class, staffed with teachers from Milan’s prestigious La Scala opera theatre.

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In the 1990s, the factories began to shut down. Ercole Marelli and Breda are gone for good, while Falck has been reduced to a much smaller factory, producing renewable energy. One industrial facility became a supermarket, another a cultural space and a third is being transformed into a large hospital.



“The first casting of steel in Falck factories was made in 1906, the last one in 1996”, recalls Antonio Pizzinato, a former secretary with the CGIL trade union. “That was the end of Sesto as an industrial city.”

The old system began to weaken. Without the factories, unions and leftwing parties lost their base. Sesto evolved into a dormitory town, with much of its workforce commuting to Milan. And yet the left remained in power – albeit less strongly that in the past – until 2017. Many say it was the fear of Muslim immigrants that brought the right to power.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The old Falck factory as it looked last year. Photograph: Luca Bruno/AP

Sesto is home to around 5,000 Muslims, most of them immigrants or children of immigrants. Their community, dating back to the 1990s, was not a source of tension until recently. Things changed in December 2016, when Anis Amri, who killed 12 people in a truck attack on a Christmas market in Berlin, was shot by police in Sesto. Amri, a Tunisian, had lived in Italy before moving to Germany but Italian authorities say he had no particular connection with Sesto – most likely he was passing through the city trying to go south – yet the fact he was found and shot here was enough to scare some residents.

After 72 years [of rule by the left] it is not yet a liveable city, it is like a dormitory Rong Li Yu

The incident came as the Muslim community was campaigning to build a proper mosque with space for 600 worshippers, to replace the existing prefabricated building on the outskirts of the city that holds half that. They had successfully obtained public land in 2013, but were still busy with land clearance work.

After the attack, and with elections approaching, the right began campaigning explicitly against the project. “They tried to draw a connection between the construction of the mosque and the presence of a terrorist in Sesto,” recalls Monica Chittò, who was mayor of Sesto from 2012 to 2017. “The two were completely unrelated, of course, but they campaigned heavily on this.” In the midst of the anti-Muslim campaign, Chittò also became a target: rumours were spread that she had left her husband for a Muslim.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Anis Amri was found and shot in Sesto. Photograph: Pontoriero/IPA/Rex/Shutterstock

The strategy proved successful. As soon as he was elected, Di Stefano blocked the construction of the mosque and vowed never to let it be built in the city as long as he remains mayor. He told Guardian Cities he fears the construction of a large mosque would attract worshippers from Milan, which is connected by the city’s metro system. “In 15 minutes, all the Arabs of Milan will arrive in Sesto San Giovanni,” he said.



The Islamic community appealed to the courts. They won the first trial but construction remains halted while the mayor appeals to a higher court.

The new mayor reminds me of Donald Trump. He wants to grab people’s attention and show he’s different, so he attacked the mosque Daniela Pansa

“Having a place of worship is a constitutional right,” says Abdullah Tchina, a local imam. “This place is only for the faithful of Sesto San Giovanni. In the neighbouring towns there are already places to pray. Why should they come from other cities to pray here?”

In a small snack bar near the mosque, people see things differently. Rong Li Yu, a bartender of Chinese origin, likes Di Stefano. “When I arrived in 1997 business was quite good,” he recalls. “Then [the factories] were gone. After 72 years [of rule by the left] it is not yet a liveable city, it is like a dormitory. I am not against the mosque but this is a small area. Citizens want a quiet city, where the economy grows and does not have problems of religion or non-religion.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Children play in Sesto’s Woods Island district. Photograph: Alamy

As Yu speaks, an old customer walks in. Tommaso Orsi, a retired factory worker, has lived all his life in Sesto. He voted for Di Stefano because he was displeased with the status quo and the way working-class families such as his had so little money. “When the factories were open it was not bad,” he recalls. In the 1980s he used to earn quite well but now lives on a €700-a-month pension, just enough to cover the rent. He partly blames the presence of immigrants.

Samarkand Abou El Kheir, a young Italian-Egyptian woman, lives in a social housing project in Sesto with her mother, Daniela Pansa, and her brother.

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“The new mayor reminds me of Donald Trump,” Pansa says. “He just wants to grab people’s attention and show that he’s different, so he attacked the mosque. But I don’t understand why he targets Muslims, who have a right to build something with their own money.”

“They ran a campaign against a minority and won because of it”, says El Kheir, a TV editor. “Until recently I felt at home and accepted in this city. Today I’m not so sure.”

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