In the investigation by the Backstair investigative unit of the online media outlet Fanpage.it, activists from Gioventù nazionale (National Youth), a movement affiliated with Fratelli d’Italia (FdI), the post-fascist party co-founded by Giorgia Meloni in 2012, make insulting remarks about Jews and people of color. Others make the fascist salute, chanting “Sieg Heil” (a Nazi salute) or “Duce, Duce, Duce” in reference to the fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini.
Two leaders of the movement have resigned and these revelations have sparked indignation among part of the political class, but Giorgia Meloni has not spoken out. Until the publication on Thursday of the second part of the investigation, in which activists mock Ester Mieli, FdI senator and former spokesperson for the Jewish community of Rome. “Anyone who expresses racist, anti-Semitic or nostalgic ideas has come to the wrong house, because these ideas are incompatible with Fratelli d’Italia,” Meloni told the Italian press on the sidelines of the European Council in Brussels.
“There is no ambiguity on my part on this subject,” she added, before attacking the journalists: “Why, in 75 years of history of the Republic, had no one undertaken to infiltrate a political party, by secretly filming its meetings? “Because these are methods of an authoritarian regime,” she thundered. “This is undercover journalism,” retorted a Fanpage reporter.
As a teenager, Ms. Meloni was active in the youth wing of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), formed by supporters of Mussolini after the Second World War. The most right-wing leader in Italy since 1945, she has tried to distance herself from the heritage of her party, without completely renouncing it. It has notably retained the tricolor flame in its logo, which was inspired by the Frenchman Jean-Marie Le Pen, when he created his National Front in 1972.
According to some analysts, the base of the logo represents the tomb of Benito Mussolini, in Predappio (north), the birthplace of the “Duce”, where tens of thousands of people visit the family crypt every year. And several senior officials of his party do not hide their admiration for the fascist regime, which introduced racial laws in 1938 against the Jews. Ignazio La Russa, ex-MSI, co-founder of FdI and president of the Senate, collects busts representing Benito Mussolini.
