The most intense internal debate right now within the Italian right, led by Giorgia Meloni and in power since 2022, is what to do in the face of the rise of former general Roberto Vannacci and his new far-right party, National Future (FN). At the European level, the three forces in the Government, where two are already far-right, face the same situation with the victory this Sunday of the AfD party in the elections of the German federal state of Saxony-Anhalt: Meloni remains silent; Matteo Salvini, leader of the League, celebrates it; and Antonio Tajani, of Forza Italia, criticizes it with alarm. With Vannacci, who accuses them of being soft and having betrayed their voters, caution has prevailed these months.
Read more Constantino Sotelo, the lord of the cerebellum
The leaders of the three formations in the Government have barely criticized the most extreme ideas of Vannacci, made public in his program in recent weeks, since they themselves have been playing with them for years. That is why what former Prime Minister Mario Monti did on Saturday causes an impression in Italy. Monti, a lifetime senator without a party but who well represents the traditional liberal conservative and pro-European world, increasingly reduced, gave the former general the most thorough dialectical review seen so far in Italian politics. He made it clear that no one from that ideological camp had done so with such clarity until now.
It happened at the Italian Davos, the prestigious forum of the municipality of Cernobbio, on Lake Como, before the top elites, finance, and industry of the country, and before Vannacci himself, invited with Monti to a round table. “Listening to your interventions, reading the program, I believe that one aspect of fascism, the most insidious, is already underway. I see in you the reconstruction of the narrative, the rhetoric, the spirit of fascism,” he warned him bluntly. And he concluded: “Old as I am, if there is any way to prevent you from continuing down this path, I will spend my last energies doing so.”
Monti, 83 years old, twice European commissioner and who, due to his prestige, was called to lead a technical government in Italy between 2011 and 2013 after Berlusconi’s fall amid the sovereign debt crisis, was very sharp and direct for what is usual for him. In his usual professorial tone, he refuted the core of the former general’s ideas, in which “more or less the superiority of Italy, Italians, and the Italian race is declared.” “It is insinuated that we are proud of our Italian identity, and I am, and that it is not sufficiently recognized in other countries, and less so in Europe… Here the Calimero complex comes into play, a resentment: we demand greater respect, we will make them pay… At a time when Italy is developing well based on real economic, social, and civil matters, I fear a psychological reconstruction in each of us of a small Italy. And since with the current governments we cannot provide more growth and more opportunities to our citizens, because we care about their vote, not their well-being, then this population will have to be satisfied by fueling its identity: we are the best, we will make ourselves respected.”
Mockery of the anti-vaccine arguments
Monti also attacked the populist and nationalist forces in Europe, which he accused of following the politics of Trump and Putin to divide Europeans: “They try it from outside and the sovereigntist parties are doing it from within. It matters little whether pushed by Trump or Putin. These forces are called populists and nationalists. My deep conviction is that in most cases they go against the interest of the people and the nation.” He received one of his applause moments when he quoted Albert Camus: “I love my country too much to be a nationalist.”
The former prime minister accused Vannacci — who is already at 8% in polls — and surpasses the League and Forza Italia in voting intention, of having an unrealistic, unfeasible, and illegal program: “In many points it violates the Constitution, the Fundamental Charter of Human Rights of the EU, gender equality, and many other things.” He warned him that implementing his program “would immediately put Italy outside the EU.”
Read more Alarm signal for democracies
But Monti went even further, leaving room for laughter and direct mockery of some far-right arguments. Specifically, he referred to the scientific denialism of the anti-vaxxers. He did so by recalling the words of one of the authors of the FN program draft, Lorenzo Gasperini, in November 2021, during the Covid pandemic. He read a comment Gasperini made then on social media that said: “A healthy young person who gets vaccinated shows weakness, fear of death, gullibility, intellectual illness, easy obedience to the first politician who passes by, and a servant psychology. Characteristics that should at least entail exclusion from sexual life, as a natural counterbalance.” After quoting this text, Monti unleashed the audience’s laughter by wondering about the “technical application of this sanction,” whether it would be by direct castration or with an electronic bracelet, “but not applied to the wrist or ankle, but to another part of the body.” And he concluded, about the drafting of the FN program: “When did Professor Gasperini take on such a serious responsibility, was he aware of this?”
The format of the meeting was not a dialogue but a succession of interventions, and there was no response because Monti spoke last, but the loud applause he received was evident, as was the coldness of the audience towards the former general, whose strong suit is not the economy, and who had criticized the rules of the EU and the single market. Another thing is that for Vannacci, in any case, being anti-system always suits him well.
The fact is that the presence of the FN leader had already caused controversy, due to the deferential treatment and entry into the high spheres that being invited to Cernobbio entails. Carlo Calenda, leader of the centrist party Azione, which is in opposition outside the center-left coalition, refused to attend and harshly criticized Vannacci’s invitation: “According to the worst tradition of Italian lobbying, they rush to kneel before the latest populist, in this case a neo-fascist, racist, and pro-Russian. In Italy, there is a weakness of the productive bourgeoisie, which has always ridden all these phenomena. They do not have a sense of their public role.”
Calenda also said, in line with Monti, that he will do everything in his power to prevent Vannacci from coming to power. These are pre-election messages to Meloni from the moderate conservative and centrist world to warn her that they would not join a coalition in which the former general was included.
Read more Neighbors evicted due to the L9 sinkhole will sue the Generalitat
