Italian police are investigating a street fight at Lake Garda in northern Italy by gangs of second-generation immigrant youths on the Republic Day holiday Thursday as well as a reported sexual assault on up to 10 girls by 30 of the suspects on the train back to Milan later that day.
The incidents have been widely condemned.
League leader Matteo Salvini said the age of criminal responsibility should be lowered so that “a 15-year-old of second, third or fourth generation cannot get off lightly”.
He said a League-proposed law cracking down on teen gangs had been “stuck in parliament for three years”.
Democratic Party MP Laura Boldrini, chair of the Lower House panel on human rights in the world, said “the gangs have once more unleashed their worst instincts by abusing women’s bodies, it is unacceptable.
“I hope the probe quickly finds names and surnames”.
Teen gangs, many of them formed by immigrant youths, have been active in Italy for years with the affluent northern regions of Lombardy and Piedmont particularly affected.
There are also many teen gangs in the south of Italy, where they tend to be all-Italian.