After 40 years of struggle, the No Tav Festival in Valsusa, Italy took place from 29 to 31 July. Thousands of young people from all over Italy and parts of France came together to protest the building of the Tav Train line. Since the 80s, the public-run enterprise FS has been seeking to build this track with the aim of connecting different European metropolises with high-speed trains, but this would mean the destruction of the environment in the Italian countryside and it would negatively affect the people living in it, which would see their way of life disrupted for the benefit of capitalist interests.

For this reason, every year those protests escalate into confrontations with the police as the youth of the movement attempt to break the heavily guarded fences that protect the construction site. In response, police used teargas against the young protestors, who came from all kinds of political left-wing groups and organisations, from anarchists to socialists and communists, feminist and ecological movements. Despite the brutal tactics of the militarized Italian police, which injured at least one protester, the protesters didn't back down and the action was successful.

This year, young internationalists also took part in the protest. "Above all, we were able to point out that the solution to the ecological crisis - and the accompanying destruction and exploitation of nature - lies in the ideology of Abdullah Öcalan and his paradigm of democratic confederalism," they said about their participation in this year's "No TAV" festival.

The "NO TAV" movement was founded in the 1990s against the construction of the Lyon-Turin high-speed railway line. With various initiatives and actions, and in particular with a lot of perseverance and great commitment, the movement wants to prevent the construction project, which is worth billions and destroys nature and the environment.