ITALY’S maverick anti-Establishment and Eurosceptic Five Star Movement (M5S) achieved a huge breakthrough yesterday, winning mayoral elections in Rome and Turin.

The victories are a massive slap in the face to Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s Democratic Party (PD), which grew out of the wreckage of the old Italian Communist Party but has since adopted the European Union’s austerity agenda.

M5S candidate Virginia Raggi, a popular 37-year-old lawyer, took 67 per cent of the vote in the Rome mayoral run-off, against PD hopeful Roberto Giachetti, making history as the city’s youngest and first woman mayor.