Venice protests target Bezos over mounting grievances
Demonstrators on the Rialto Bridge, stand by a banner that reads 'No space for Bezos' as they take part in a protest against Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, on the third day of Jeff Bezos and his wife Lauren Sanchez Bezos' wedding festivities, in Venice, Italy, June 28, 2025. REUTERS/Manuel Silvestri
ROME - Mass tourism, impossibly high rents, worker exploitation, inequality and elitism: Venice, Italy's protests in recent days against Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez's high-profile wedding have highlighted growing global grievances.
Local politicians dismissed protesters as a fringe minority. Bezos's fame and Venice's stunning visual backdrop have offered them international visibility which they effectively exploited.
"No Space for Bezos" banners draped over the iconic Rialto Bridge and a huge canvas laid out on St Mark's Square urging the tech billionaire to pay more taxes have been seen all over the world.
Concerns of greater disruptions forced Bezos and his bride to move their final and biggest celebrity party from the central district to a more isolated venue in the eastern part of the lagoon city.
"The idea that the city should be seen as a set, a stage, or an amusement park has been highlighted like never before by Bezos' wedding," Tommaso Cacciari, a frontman for the No Space for Bezos movement, told Reuters.
In the final protest on Saturday, around 1,000 residents and activists rallied in front of Venice's train station under a scorching sun, before marching roughly 1.5 kilometres (0.93 miles) to the Rialto Bridge.
They carried banners including one proclaiming 'Kisses yes, Bezos no', playing on Venice's reputation as the city of love, and another one saying 'No space for Bezos' with a rocket, in a reference to his Blue Origin space technology company.
Venetian businesses and politicians, however, welcomed the event, hailing its major boost for the local economy. Luca Zaia, the regional governor of Veneto around Venice, said the city should be proud of hosting the wedding.
TRUMP TIES
Alice Bazzoli, a 24-year-old university student, called Bezos a "hypocrite" for donating 3 million euros ($3.5 million) to Venice while flooding its fragile ecosystem with high-polluting private jets and yachts.
Bezos and Sanchez have given 1 million euros each to three Venetian institutions: CORILA, an academic consortium that studies the lagoon, UNESCO's local office, and Venice International University.
"I'd love Venice to be tailored for citizens, not for tourists, with affordable housing," Bazzoli told Reuters, complaining that students were being priced out of the market, with the best accommodations offered to visitors.
Andrea Segre, a 49-year-old Italian film director born in Venice, said the city was also pushing out ordinary residents.
"People aged 25 to 35 — the age group that starts families — cannot afford to live in Venice. The consequence is a lack of diversity and social liveliness," he said.
Venice is rapidly depopulating, largely because of the cost of living crisis. Its historic city centre now has fewer than 50,000 residents, compared to more than 100,000 some 50 years ago.
The city has hosted scores of other VIP weddings, including that of actor George Clooney and human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin in 2014, but the latest luxury nuptials have attracted far greater resentment because of Bezos' corporate and political role.
The Amazon founder is the world's fourth richest man, and has developed ties with U.S. President Donald Trump, whose daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner were in attendance at the wedding.
"Bezos is the embodiment of the most absolute wealth gained through the exploitation of everything around you," 28-year-old student Giulia Cacopardo told Reuters in the run-up to Saturday's march.
In Italy, the e-commerce giant has faced criticism and strikes from trade unions over labour practices, and scrutiny over tax compliance. Reuters reported in February that Italian prosecutors were investigating alleged tax evasion worth 1.2 billion.
"I would have protested against Bezos even if he had come on a rowboat with just a handful of people ... because he contributed practically, materially and politically to Donald Trump's re-election," protest leader Cacciari said. REUTERS
Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Straits Times
an hour ago
- Straits Times
Chechen leader says Putin congratulated him on son's wedding
FILE PHOTO: Russia's President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov in Grozny, Russia August 20, 2024. Sputnik/Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo The head of Russia's Caucasus region of Chechnya, a fervent supporter of Moscow's war in Ukraine, said Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin telephoned him on Saturday to congratulate him on his son's wedding. Ramzan Kadyrov, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said Putin "personally congratulated me ... on this important event and offered his warmest words of congratulation." Kadyrov said he was particularly touched that Putin had found the time to call "despite being so colossally busy with matters of state. This is a very dear thing." Kadyrov has led Chechnya, a mountainous Muslim region in southern Russia that tried to break away from Moscow in wars that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, since 2007. He has sent large contingents of troops to boost Russian ranks in the 40-month-old war against Ukraine and in the conflict's early stages commented frequently on events on the battlefield. His son, Adam, who turns 18 in November, already holds several positions in the region's security structures. Reports from the region said he was appointed secretary of Chechnya's security council in April. He also serves as his father's top bodyguard, a trustee of Chechnya's Special Forces University, and an observer in a new army battalion. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
2 hours ago
- Straits Times
Russian culture minister in North Korea praises 'unprecedented' cooperation
FILE PHOTO: Russian Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova attends a ceremony of awarding India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle the First-Called at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia July 9, 2024. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina/File Photo Russian Culture Minister Olga Lyubimova arrived in North Korea on Saturday with a 125-strong delegation of performers and praised cultural cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang for achieving "unprecedented heights". Lyubimova, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said a series of concerts and lectures would take place in the North Korean capital in the coming days. Among those in the delegation were performers from the Pyatnitsky Choir and the Gzhel dance troupe. Lyubimova said that thanks to agreements clinched between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korea leader Kim Jong Un "cooperation in the cultural sphere between our countries has reached unprecedented heights". Since Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Moscow and Pyongyang have drawn closer together, with the two leaders signing a treaty, including a mutual defence pact. After months of silence, North Korea and Russia have disclosed the deployment of North Korean troops and the role they played in Moscow's offensive to evict Ukrainian troops from the Kursk region. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
2 hours ago
- Straits Times
Top Ukraine commander sees new assault on key eastern city
Ukrainian servicemen outside the front-line city of Kostiantynivka, in Ukraine's Donetsk region, in May 2025. PHOTO: REUTERS KYIV - Ukraine's top commander said on June 28 that his forces faced a new onslaught against a key city on the eastern front of its war against Russia, while Moscow said it was making progress in another sector farther south-west. After their initial failed advance on the capital Kyiv in the first weeks after the February 2022 invasion, Russian troops have focused on capturing all of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. The city of Kostiantynivka has been a major target. Ukrainian forces have for months defended the city against fierce assaults, with the regional governor urging remaining residents this week to evacuate as infrastructure breaks down. Top Ukrainian commander Oleksander Syrskyi, writing on Telegram on June 28, said the area around Kostiantynivka was gripped by heavy fighting. 'The enemy is surging towards Kostiantynivka, but apart from sustaining numerous losses, has achieved nothing,' General Syrskyi said. 'The aggressor is trying to break through our defences and advance along three operating sectors.' A spokesman for Ukrainian forces in the east, Major Viktor Trehubov, told the Ukrinform news agency that Kostiantynivka and the city of Pokrovsk to the west were 'the main arena of battles and the Kremlin's strategic ambitions'. Gen Syrskyi also said that Ukrainian forces had withstood in the past week a powerful attack near the village of Yablunivka in northeastern Sumy region, where Russian forces have been trying to establish a buffer zone inside the Ukrainian border. Russia's Defence Ministry, in a report earlier in the day, said Moscow's forces had seized the village of Chervona Zirka - further south-west, near the administrative border of Dnipropetrovsk region. Apartment buildings damaged by Russian military strikes in the front-line town of Kostiantynivka, in Ukraine's Donetsk region. PHOTO: REUTERS Russia's slow advance through eastern Ukraine, with Moscow claiming a string of villages day after day, has resulted in destruction of major cities and infrastructure. Moscow has insisted that progress towards a settlement of the 40-month-old war depends on Ukraine recognising Moscow's control over four Ukrainian regions - Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. Russian forces control about one-fifth of Ukraine's territory, though they do not fully hold any of the four regions. Moscow has said in recent weeks that its troops have made advances in areas adjacent to Dnipropetrovsk region, which lies next to both Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions. Ukrainian officials have denied those reports. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
