Thousands of university and high school students from across Italy joined a national protest in Rome against government cuts in the higher education sector on Friday, unions said.
Traffic was paralysed as students marched through the streets towards Piazza Navona for the main rally after arriving in special coaches and trains from all over the country.
Unions said around 500,000 students took part in the protest, although police said 100,000 was a more accurate estimate.
Students from Florence stripped to their underwear in front of the House of Deputies, shouting ''you've left us all in our underpants'', while others left a coffin symbolising the death of education in the entrance of the Senate.
Thousands took part in a vast Mexican wave as they marched, brandishing blue plastic bags above their heads in a 'wave' of protest, and carried banners baiting Premier Silvio Berlusconi, Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini and other cabinet ministers.
''Berlusconi, if you have hair you owe it to research'', read a placard carried by science students from Naples University, referring to the premier's 2004 hair transplant, while a group of neuroscience researchers held similar signs reminding Reform Minister Umberto Bossi that his recovery from a 2004 stroke was ''thanks to them''.
Rome high school students held banners in Latin reading ''Quousque tandem, Gelmini, abutere patientia nostra?'' (''How long, Gelmini, will you abuse our patience?''), from a speech by Cicero uncovering a conspiracy by Catiline against Rome.
As well as smaller protests in other Italian cities, demonstrations were also held by Italian researchers and students abroad in Germany, France and Belgium.
Some 300 protesters presented a list of complaints to the Italian consul in Paris and waved banners saying ''A country that doesn't invest in research has no future''. The percentage of lecturers under the age of 35 is 12% in France compared to 1% in Italy, they told reporters.
A small group of right-wing students meanwhile staged a counter-protest in support of reforms outside the education ministry in Rome, holding placards that read ''Go Gelmini'' and ''Against the new 1968ers'', referring to historic left-wing student riots.
GELMINI 'ON THE SIDE OF THE STUDENTS'.
Gelmini said ahead of Friday's protests that she ''understood the concern'' of students over government reforms.
''I'm on their side,'' she told daily La Repubblica. ''Their worries are my worries. I was a student once and I too was concerned about the future''.
But Gelmini said the government would go ahead with the reforms despite protests from students and teaching staff alike, who have been staging sit-ins, marches and open-air lessons for the last four weeks.
''I'm working so that at least one Italian university can be counted among the top 100 in the world,'' she said.
''It's a difficult challenge and I realise as minister I have full responsibility, but I also realise that to be successful everyone needs to work together''.
COST-CUTTING REFORMS.
Students are protesting over planned government spending cuts of 1.5 billion euros in the sector as well as a raft of cost-reducing reforms which have yet to be finalised, but which are tipped to include a reduction in the number of courses offered and the closure of some outlying university branches with low student attendance.
The government also has plans to allow universities to become foundations in order to top up public funding with private investments.
In a first step towards reform, the government last week greenlighted a decree that will ease restrictions on the employment of researchers and takes steps towards banishing the perception of widespread corruption in the university recruitment process.
The decree was welcomed by some university bodies, but critics said the planned spending cuts undermine any good it might do.
''You can't stop a protest that is growing in the conscience of the country with this plate of lentils,'' Flc-Cgil union chief Mimmo Pantaleo said of the decree.
High school students joined Friday's rally to protest against school reforms already passed by parliament, which include a return to a single-teacher system for most subjects for children in elementary schools.
This is the second national protest held by the education sector in two weeks following one focussing on the school reforms on October 30.
