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‘Italians first’: Italy’s far-right leader echoes Trump in election campaign

The leader of Italy's far-right party, Matteo Salvini, repeated the slogan 'Italians first' in a TV interview in which he laid out plans to expel hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants.

Published: 24 January 2018 13:12 CET
'Italians first': Italy's far-right leader echoes Trump in election campaign
Matteo Salvini pictured in Milan this week. Photo: Miguel Medina/AFP

“In Italy there are too many illegal immigrants who go around making trouble. I can't take it anymore,” said Salvini on political talk show Dimartedì.

Salvini's Northern League party is part of a centre-right alliance led by Silvio Berlusconi and currently leading opinion polls.

Salvini said that if he became prime minister, he would ensure that within a year 100,000 “illegal migrants” would be sent back to their countries of origin, saying: “In this moment of crisis and unemployment, the more migrants that come in, the more confusion.”

However, it is not clear how he plans to overcome the bureaucratic obstacles that have slowed down deportations, including the difficulty of tracking down those who live without documents and work in the black economy, or dealing with countries of origin that refuse to accept deported migrants.

The Northern League leader tweeted along with the show, using the hashtag #Primagliitaliani (“Italians first”), one of the party's slogans in the 2018 election campaign and a sentiment echoed in several of his statements.

He accused former PM Matteo Renzi of “betraying the Italians” and said the Northern League would put forward as a candidate “anyone who recognizes themselves in the League's slogan 'Italians first'”.

The day before he had said on Twitter that this slogan was the party's “only objective”.

The 'Italians First' slogan, with its clear parallel to Donald Trump's catchphrase 'America First', is one of several recent shifts in Salvini's rhetoric which give insight into how the party hopes to gain votes in the 2018 election scheduled for March 4th.

It doesn't come as a surprise to see Salvini emulating Trump; he has regularly shared messages in support of the US president, even before his election victory, describing him as a “heroic and colourful person” who shared many of Salvini's own views.

When the pair met, Salvini tweeted a photo of him and Trump smiling and doing thumbs-up signs, though Trump denied claims he had told the Northern League leader “I hope you become prime minister soon”, and said he didn't even know who Salvini was. But that didn't deter Salvini, who was the first Italian politician to congratulate Trump on his election, tweeting “Go, Donald, GO” and the hashtag #oratoccaanoi (“now it's our turn”).

By repeating 'Italians first', Salvini also demonstrated the shift in tactics from the party, which was originally founded as a secessionist movement in the northern area it calls Padania.

In 2014, the Northern League launched a sister movement aimed at Italy's south and titled Noi con Salvini (“Us with Salvini”). This angered party founder Umberto Bossi, but Salvini said of the party's previous criticism of mafia activity, low employment figures and crime in the southern regions: “We have never attacked citizens of the south, only those who manage it”.

Under Salvini's leadership, the Northern League has changed its focus from campaigning for autonomy for the northern regions to a heightened emphasis on its anti-immigration and anti-EU stance.

In his Tuesday interview, he said: “My League is a league which has chosen to speak to all of Italy” as well as saying he was “less and less interested” in differences between the political right and left.

The Northern League also dropped the word ‘north’ from their official logo in late December, approving a simple logo with the word ‘League’ above the party’s image of 12th-century Lombard warrior Alberto da Giussano.

On the new logo, the heading 'Lega' is now accompanied by the new slogan ‘Salvini premier’, yet another sign that the party is increasingly focussed on its figurehead. 

If the centre-right bloc gains a majority, either Forza Italia or the Northern League will choose the country's next prime minister, depending which of the two parties gets more votes. Currently, Forza Italia is just ahead with opinion polls showing it with 16 percent of the vote compared to the League's 14 percent; however, Forza Italia's leader Berlusconi is ineligible to run for office due to a tax fraud conviction.

Salvini also defended the party against accusations of racism in the Tuesday interview, after a Northern League politician said that migration threatened to “wipe out our white race” in what he later claimed was a slip of the tongue. 

Speaking on Tuesday, the party leader said that “the only antidote to racism is controlled immigration”.

 

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POLITICS

How much control does Giorgia Meloni’s government have over Italian media?

There's been renewed debate over the state of press freedom in Italy following warnings that Meloni's administration is seeking "control" of Italy's media. But what's behind these reports?

Published: 9 April 2024 13:13 CEST
How much control does Giorgia Meloni's government have over Italian media?

Press freedom is at the centre of fresh debate in Italy this week after Spanish newspaper El País on Saturday published an article titled “Meloni wants all the media power in Italy.”

The report, which was picked up by Italian newspaper La Repubblica, suggests that the Italian prime minister and her right-wing executive is looking to “monopolise” national print and broadcast outlets

It follows reports in English-language media recently describing how Meloni is accused of trying to stamp her authority on Italian arts and media in what critics call a “purge” of dissenting voices.

Meloni and members of her administration have long faced accusations of trying to silence journalists and intimidate detractors. Media organisations say this often takes the form of high-profile politicians bringing lawsuits against individual journalists, and cite the defamation case brought by Meloni against anti-mafia reporter Roberto Saviano in 2023 as a prime example.

READ ALSO: Six things to know about the state of press freedom in Italy

Discussions over media independence aren’t new in Italy, as the country has consistently ranked poorly in the annual Press Freedom reports by Reporters without Borders in recent years. Italy came in 41st out of 180 in the 2023 ranking, which made it the worst country in western Europe for press freedom.

But what’s behind the recent allegations that the government is trying to exert a more direct influence?

Meloni, Porta a Porta

Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Italian national TV show Porta a Porta in Rome on April 4th 2024. Photo by Filippo MONTEFORTE / AFP

National television

The article from El País accuses Meloni’s cabinet of effectively controlling Italy’s two biggest national broadcasters: state-owned RAI and commercial broadcaster Mediaset.

While Mediaset and its three main channels (Rete 4, Canale 5 and Italia 1) have long been seen as ‘loyal’ to Meloni’s executive – the network was founded by the late Silvio Berlusconi, whose Forza Italia party continues to be a key member of the ruling coalition – the government’s ties with public broadcaster RAI are more complex.

Unlike state-owned broadcasters in other European countries, RAI is not controlled by a regulatory body but rather by the government itself, which means that the network has always been particularly susceptible to political influences. 

But Meloni’s cabinet is accused of exerting unprecedented power over the broadcaster following the replacement of former top executives with figures considered closer to the government.

Salvini, RAI

Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini speaks with Italian journalist Bruno Vespa during the talk show Porta a Porta, broadcast on Italian channel Rai 1. Photo by Andreas SOLARO / AFP

Last May, Carlo Fuortes resigned as RAI’s CEO saying that he couldn’t possibly “accept changes opposed to RAI’s interests”. He was replaced by centrist Roberto Sergio, who in turn appointed Giampaolo Rossi – a “loyalist” of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party – as the network’s general director. 

Sergio and Rossi’s appointment was closely followed by a general management reshuffle which saw figures close to the government occupy key positions within the company. This led to critics and journalists dubbing the network ‘TeleMeloni’.

Print media 

Besides concerns over its sway on Italy’s main broadcast networks, Meloni’s executive is currently under heavy scrutiny following the rumoured takeover of Italy’s AGI news agency by the right-wing Angelucci publishing group. 

The group is headed by Antonio Angelucci, an MP for Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini’s hard-right League party, and owner of three right-wing newspapers: Il Giornale, Libero and Il Tempo.

News of the potential takeover from Angelucci sparked a series of strikes and demonstrations from the news agency’s journalists in recent weeks, with reporters raising concerns over the independence and autonomy of journalists in the event of an ownership change.

The leader of the centre-left Democratic Party Elly Schlein weighed in on the matter last week, saying that the sale of Italy’s second-largest news agency to a ruling coalition MP would be “inadmissible”.

Further debate over press freedom in the country emerged in early March after three journalists from the left-wing Domani newspaper were accused of illegally accessing and publishing private data regarding a number of high-profile people, including Defence Minister Guido Crosetto, and the late Silvio Berlusconi’s girlfriend. 

The newspaper has so far condemned the investigation, saying it is “a warning to Domani and all journalists” and a further threat to media independence in a country ranked amongst the worst in Europe for press freedom.

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