Hundreds camp in Rome heat as Meloni government locks out squat

Hundreds of people have spent a week sleeping in tents in the Rome heat amid a standoff between Giorgia Meloni's far-right government and local politicians over the future of Italy's most high-profile centre for squatters, the Guardian reported on Wednesday.

The Spin Time building, which provides homes, food banks and after-school clubs, has been locked out by authorities, the paper said. Residents have been camping outside in temperatures that have prompted the government to place all 27 major cities, including Rome, under the highest heat alert.

The standoff reflects a national fault line that the Abruzzo bureau reads through the lens of the inner Apennines: the tension between the state's authority and the provision of housing and services in a country where depopulation and urban pressure pull in opposite directions.