The event drew some 10,000 protestors to the Sicilian city of Messina, according to organizers.

Another 15,000 joined a parallel demonstration in the Val di Susa region of the Italian Alps, to back the Sicilian protest and also to call attention to their own fight against a planned high-speed rail link connecting Turin and Lyon in France through their region.

The project to build the world's largest suspension bridge across the Strait of Messina, a key part of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's transport policy, is expected to cost six billion euros (7.3 billion dollars).

Once completed, in principle by the end of 2011, the bridge will have a central span measuring 3,360 meters (11,000 feet), 64 meters above the water. Its total length will be 3,690 meters.

The project is opposed by a variety of groups, from Italian environmentalists to state prosecutors worried about public works money ending up lining the pockets of the area's notorious Mafia groups.

The European Commission in October took up the matter, accusing Italy of not having made an environmental impact study of the bridge construction project as some 300 species of birds are found in the Messina straits.

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