Italy: on the eve of the legislative elections, the far right holds a triumphant meeting in Rome

The only joint meeting of a flash campaign: the alliance dominated by the far right made its show on Thursday in Rome. Given the winner in Sunday’s legislative elections, Giorgia Meloni, the head of Fratelli d’Italia, spoke alongside her allies, Silvio Berlusconi (Forza Italia), Maurizio Lupi (Noi Con l’Italia) and Matteo Salvini ( League). The alliance dominated by the extreme right, favorite of the legislative elections on Sunday, held its only joint meeting in Rome on Thursday, September 22, at the end of a lightning campaign which could bring to power an ex-admirer of Mussolini. Italy going to fall? Placed on a financial infusion by its European partners after a devastating pandemic, it should put its destiny in the hands of Giorgia Meloni, head of Fratelli d’Italia (FdI), ultra-conservative, identity and nationalist formation. “I vote for Meloni, she has never betrayed me, I share her opinions 100%, I find her coherent,” Giuli Ruggeri, a 53-year-old unemployed woman who came to the meeting in People’s Square, told AFP in the center of the city. Italian capital.”La Meloni” as it is known in Italy, 45, has allied itself with the conservative Forza Italia (FI) party of declining billionaire Silvio Berlusconi, and the anti-migrant and populist League of Matteo Salvini. The three leaders, on stage side by side for the first and last time in this campaign “under the umbrellas”, followed one another to harangue their tens of thousands of supporters gathered for this final sprint. It is a visibly diminished Berlusconi, struggling to walk er alone, who spoke first, briefly: “Italy does not want to be governed by the left”, asserted the octogenarian, denouncing “fiscal oppression” and “uncontrolled invasion” of migrants. >> To read also: Legislative in Italy: facing the far right, the left “plays the counter, without having its Mbappé” Matteo Salvini has set the coalition’s objective to “govern well and together for five years “, pledging to “protect Italy and the Italians”. He chained promises in a disjointed speech: blocking energy prices, ending migrant landings, abolishing the TV license fee… while attacking the “dictates” of Brussels. “We are ready” Finally, the real star of the meeting, Giorgia Meloni, whose supporters who dominated the assistance chanted the first name, kept them in suspense with a river speech of more than half an hour. “We are ready, you will see it Sunday,” she assured, promising to defend Italy’s “national interest” against Europe. “We want a strong, serious and respected Italy on the international scene,” she said. affirmed, also committing to launch “a reform of Italian institutions” towards a presidential regime to guarantee “stability” in a country known precisely for its governmental instability. Together, right and extreme right could obtain the absolute majority of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, with a comfortable lead over the Democratic Party (PD) of Enrico Letta, which failed to federate left and center. According to the latest polls, Fratelli d’Italia is credited with 24 to 25% of the voting intentions, ahead of the PD between 21 and 22%. This is followed by the 5 Star Movement (ex-antisystem) with 13 to 15%, the League at 12%, Forza Italia at 8%. election is closely watched in Brussels after the victory of a right-wing and far-right bloc in Sweden, as Giorgia Meloni could become the first head of government of an EU founding country to lead a party post-fascist. Attention, however, warns Marc Lazar, professor at Sciences Po and at the Luiss University of Rome, if the victory of the conservatives seems acquired, “the polls have been denied in the past”. Key factor of this election, the turnout should drop to a historically low level, below 70%. Conducted in the middle of summer when the Italians were at the beach, it was “one of the worst campaigns of the post-war (…) It n “there was no confrontation on the ideas and visions of each”, analyzes Flavio Chiapponi, from the University of Pavia. oite wants more borders and less “bureaucratic” Europe, more birth rate and less immigration, more “Judeo-Christian” values ​​and less taxes.”The Italians first”But everyone, in the countryside, wanted to recall its DNA, beyond the electoral agreement: if Meloni and Salvini castigate “Islamization” and undertake to put “Italians first”, the first, protectionist, believes in the Interventionist state when Salvini and Berlusconi, more liberal, argue for a flat tax of 15 and 23% respectively. Coming from a political family that was built on anti-communism, Giorgia Meloni is also Atlanticist and supports sanctions against Moscow after the invasion of Ukraine, while Salvini, Vladimir Putin’s great “tifoso”, opposes them, believing that they mainly harm Italians who pay a high price for gas. On the left, Enrico Letta, he, has “exclusively campaigned on the defensive, as if he considered himself already beaten”, judge Flav io Chiapponi, while Giorgia Meloni surveyed Italy from North to South as if she were already Prime Minister. Enrico Letta presents himself as the guarantor of an Italy anchored in Europe, a weighty argument after the granting by the EU of nearly 200 billion euros in aid to Italy to revive its economy after the pandemic. With AFP