Giulia Blasi is a writer and activist based in Rome, and the author of the feminist primer "Manuale per ragazze rivoluzionarie" (Rizzoli, 2018).

ROME — It all began with 15,000 people packed tightly in Bologna's Piazza Maggiore, like sardines in a can.

The “Sardines,” a burgeoning Italian protest movement that made its debut mid-November in the region of Emilia-Romagna, started with a simple idea: to gather more people in a public space than would attend a rally by far-right League leader Matteo Salvini.

The former interior minister, who stepped down earlier this year in a failed bid to strengthen his hold over the government, regularly draws thousands of supporters to rallies across the country with an anti-immigrant, Italy-first message.

The movement’s founders, Mattia Santori, Roberto Morotti, Giulia Trappoloni and Andrea Garreffa — four former roommates, all in their early- to mid-thirties — wanted to send a clear message: Salvini isn’t the only one who can gather a crowd.

They knew the site of a planned rally by the League leader in Bologna, the PalaDozza sporting arena, had a capacity of 5,570. They wanted to stage a competing rally that would draw at least 6,000 to another location — the majestic, and highly symbolic, Piazza Maggiore. “Really tight,” they specified in the social media post that called for people to stand shoulder to shoulder in the square to send a message to the far right.

Almost three times as many people showed up, according to the local authorities, holding hand-drawn fishes made of cardboard, crying out “Bologna non abbocca” (“Bologna won't take the bait”). The group repeated the coup a few days later, on November 18, in Modena, where some 7,000 people came out in driving rain to sing the traditional Resistance song "Bella ciao" and chant “Modena non si lega!” (“Modena will not be tied down”).

The gatherings, more akin to flash mobs than rallies, are now spreading across the country. Facebook groups are popping up to organize similar events from north to south, and a number of cities already have a date, all within the next few days. Expat Italians have even staged similar events in the Netherlands and Ireland, according to Santori.

It’s not surprising that the movement started in Emilia-Romagna. Traditionally a left-wing stronghold, the region has seen an explosion of support for the League. The party’s candidate in regional elections in January, Lucia Borgonzoni, is polling at 48.5 percent, some 8.5 percentage points ahead of the left-wing incumbent Stefano Bonaccini from the center-left Democratic Party (PD).

Critics of the Sardines movement are skeptical of its ability to bring about real change.

“We meant to sound an alarm at the beginning of the electoral campaign in Emilia-Romagna, calling for those who will no longer abide the populist rhetoric and all its lies, mystification, sensationalism and empty soundbites,” said Santori.

“We thought that only the Bolognese would show up, but we woke up to a whole country responding to this call … We appear to have filled a void that was bigger than we imagined.”

Italy’s left has taken a battering across the country, where the League is by far the most popular party. Torn between the temptation to increase its base by chasing a more moderate, right-leaning electorate, and the need to keep speaking to its increasingly disillusioned progressive voters, the PD is finding it increasingly hard to speak with one voice.

Its identity crisis has been aggravated by former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s decision to break away from the party he once led to found a liberal competitor, Italia Viva, and by its uneasy governing alliance with the anti-establishment 5Star Movement.

Critics of the Sardines movement are skeptical of its ability to bring about real change. And it’s true that the past 20 years have seen more than their fair share of left-wing grassroots efforts come and go — most of them formed in opposition to former Prime Minster Silvio Berlusconi.

The most prominent among them were the “Popolo Viola”(Purple People) mass movement calling for his resignation and the feminist movement “Se non ora, quando?” (If not now, when?) that took off in reaction to allegations of sexual misconduct and blatant sexism.

The Sardines movement, according to Santori, aspires to be something much simpler and less structured. He and his co-founders think of it as “a wake-up call for all anti-populist forces.”

But while they’ve been successful in drawing attention away from Salvini’s campaign, it’s an open question whether the movement will have a real impact at the ballot box.

“What is missing right now from politics is a clear vision, capable of giving credible and coherent answers to the larger issues that people are mobilizing for,” said Elly Schlein, a former MEP for the left-wing Italian party Possible.

“It's not impossible to pick up these threads, but unless these movements find some sort of representation, politics will always be self-referential and empty.”

Salvini responded to the Sardines gathering in Bologna by taking aim at a local politician, 29-year-old Silvia Benaglia. Since he posted a picture of her holding up a fish-shaped sign alongside a screenshot of one of her social media post — which reads "These [presumably League party members] are criminals lent to politics" — Benaglia was pelted with insults, attacks and threats.

The former interior minister is a veteran of social media trench warfare, which he regularly employs against those who stand up against his rhetoric. His social media team has launched a social media campaign called “Kittens for Salvini,” which casts League voters as cats ready to eat the sardines.

In interviews, the far-right leader has sometimes appeared dismissive of the movement: “I wasn't scared of the Casamonicas [a Roman clan with a history of criminality], I'm not going to be scared of these guys,” he told press agency ANSA after the Bologna protest.

A day later, Salvini changed his tune slightly: “Any form of [political] participation is good,” he told ANSA again. “[Sardines] are a risk for left-wing parties, who are unable to draw crowds and need Sardines to do that for them. I like that challenge, I find it stimulating! I welcome it.”