Starbucks’ first steps into Italy have run into heavy weather as protest turns ugly.
The US coffee retailer last week announced plans to open between 200 and 300 outlets in Italy, starting in Milan and Rome.
At the same time, the company had won a competitive tender to renovate some of Milan’s green spaces.
But the cluster of tall palm trees installed only last Thursday next to Milan’s historic Cathedral, the Duomo, caused consternation in some quarters over the use of non-native plants.
Early Sunday morning, vandals tried to set light to some of them. Three of the 42 trees were torched, with one receiving extensive damage.
The incident followed protests on Saturday organised by the anti-immigrant Northern League party and CasaPound, a radical rightwing movement. Demonstrators waving Italian flags stood by a large banner alleging the "Africanisation" of the historic piazza fronting the 14th century Gothic cathedral.
The planting scheme also calls for banana trees to be put in.
"Palms and bananas in Piazza Duomo! All we need now are camels and monkeys and we will really have Africa in Italy," said Matteo Salvini, leader of the Northern League.
Palm trees, while not indigenous, are widespread in parts of southern Italy. The Milan planting comprises a variety which is resistant to the cold weather commonly experienced during northern Italian winters.
Defending the clear, open space in front of the Duomo, the celebrated Italian architect and garden designer said: "The Duomo square is famously empty, a kind of mineral space. That is how it was conceived by the architect (Piero) Portaluppi and his vision deserves to be respected."
In a piece on the daily La Repubblica, he also dismissed the plants chosen for the location as “neo-Gothic folly” with the banana trees approaching “the limits of kitsch”.
