UNEXPECTEDLY? Migrant crisis: Italy lurches to the right as tolerance wears thin.

As cowering locals filmed Catania’s first ever interracial street fighting on their phones, Mr Salice, 54, climbed into his white van and drove it towards the Senegalese, then reversed before careering into a stall, scattering those who had avoided being run over.

His subsequent claim that he was trying to get his van to safety did not convince Tidiane Diamanka, a Senegalese hawker. “He was trying to hit people — this was an act of terrorism,” he said.

The battle on July 19, which police are investigating, was a turning point for Catania. Italian traders in this port of 300,000 people in the shadow of Mount Etna used to help African hawkers to dodge the police. Now, after the arrival of more than 600,000 migrants in Italy in the past four years, locals are increasingly saying basta — enough. And not just in Catania.

The summer has been peppered with reports of violence and hostility to migrants as Italians adjust to the likelihood that many tens of thousands of the newcomers will be staying permanently. The country’s tolerance is waning, its politics being reshaped. The anti-establishment and increasingly migrant-hostile Five Star Movement is well placed to win next year’s parliamentary elections.

Interesting report, and with serious longterm implications for Europe.