Par
Souleymane Loum
| 17 seconds ago
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No one expected this surge from the left, crushed in the last legislative elections and struggling to find its way for 2 years in a country firmly held by a far-right coalition. It is a very tough migration policy that forms the basis of the government majority, moreover the results of the European elections have reinforced Giorgia Meloni’s orientations. It is precisely this fortress that the left-wing opposition has decided to attack, knowing that if it falls the whole Meloni edifice will collapse. The head of government is attacked head-on, on the legislation for foreigners, in particular the simplification of access to Italian citizenship. The left has won the first round.
What the opposition wants to impose on the far right is a referendum, it’s off to a good start with half a million signatures collected in a few days. The long-term goal is that foreigners residing in Italy wait less time to obtain nationality. Of course this major change, which is to say a political earthquake, is not in keeping with the times, does not follow the direction of public opinion, in Italy and elsewhere in Europe, but the left is giving it a try.
The petition is causing a stir, the fact of having exceeded the threshold required to organize a referendum – 500,000 signatures – makes the left’s maneuver very perilous for the government. The referendum has become legitimate, the legality remains, it is up to the Constitutional Court to act on it, or not. If the jurisdiction approves the request, the vote can be organized next spring, and if Italian citizens say Yes, we will immediately move on to revising the legislation on access to citizenship.
As it stands, for a foreigner legally residing on Italian soil to have the right to naturalization, he must wait 10 years. The left wants to halve this period to bring it down to 5 years. A reform that would allow 2.5 million immigrants to become Italian immediately. For the left, it is a way of magnifying the contribution of immigrants to the country’s economic growth. Obviously, Mrs. Meloni and company do not see things in the same way at all.
The signatories of the petition proclaim:something simple, almost banal: those who choose Italy to live, study, love and grow, those who imagine their future in our country, are Italians“, posted on social networks the opposition MP Riccardo Magi. It is a huge stone thrown directly into the garden of the fiery leader of the League, the former Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini, who risks 6 years in prison for having blocked at sea 147 migrants in great distress.
Before the start of the school year, Salvini, a heavyweight in the ruling coalition, had torpedoed the plan to naturalize hundreds of thousands of immigrant children attending school in Italy. The man continues to cling to the right of blood, a provision that has not changed since “the dawn of time” in this country where conservatives rule. Giorgia Meloni, who was elected on an anti-migrant platform, hammered home last Tuesday that 10 years was “a suitable period for citizenship” and that she did not see “no need to change“the law…
Here we are: a total blockage, the ostrich policy for some – the extreme right -, the crazy dream of humanism for others – the left. We will see if Romano Prodi’s successors will manage to impose the right of the soil on the Iron Lady. Elon Musk, who came to see her in December 2023, had pleaded for the doors to be opened; Italy is doing it but only to fill its empty boxes, as for the basic rights of migrants, we will come back to that.
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Italian citizenship, Right of Blood, Right of the Soil, extreme right, Italian left, Giorgia Meloni, Italy, legislation on foreigners, Matteo Salvini, Nationality, left opposition, Petition, anti-migrant policy, migration policy, referendum
