Violent clashes broke out this week between Italian police and the Chinese community in Prato, a town near Florence that is home to one of the largest concentrations of Chinese-run industry in Europe.
Tensions had been rising in the town, Italy's textile capital, where people began emigrating from China in the mid-1990s. Some 50,000 Chinese work in the area, making clothes and handbags with the prized "Made in Italy" label.
Many of the area's textile businesses depend on the labor of immigrants who are in the country illegally, ignoring safety rules and evading taxes. The area is also the focus of an investigation into alleged illicit transfers of some €4.5 billion ($5.01 billion) to China from Italy between 2006 and 2010.