Three McDonald's restaurants in Genoa were closed yesterday, apparently out of fear of being targeted by anti-globalisation activists during the Group of Eight (G8) summit opening on Friday.
A manager at a fourth McDonald's outlet in Genoa, where meals continued to be served, would not say whether the port area restaurant would remain open during the summit.
McDonald's runs two restaurants on a busy Genoa street which links the venue of the G8 summit at the former royal palace and the Brignole train station where 28 special trains with an expected 25,000 demonstrators are expected to arrive before the start of the meeting.
The summit ends on Sunday.
The radical French farmers' leader, Mr Jove Bove, a hero of the anti-globalisation movement who is hoping to go to Genoa, has in the past been convicted for partially demolishing a McDonald's restaurant in Millau, southern France.
Meanwhile, police raided the premises of left-wing groups in at least four Italian cities early yesterday as part of a security clampdown before the summit, police said.
Searches were carried out in Genoa, Milan, Florence and Naples in "social centres" linked to left-wing groups.
Anti-terrorist police found nothing at a centre in Genoa where about 20 youths were sleeping.
In Florence, police seized documents during a raid on a centre in the north of the city, where about a dozen people were staying, and on an apartment.
Police in Genoa are stepping up an investigation into a letter bomb that exploded on Monday, injuring a police officer.
The G8 summit venue had three bomb scares early yesterday, police said.