The Italian far right has wasted little time in politically exploiting the multiple hit-and-run incident that occurred on Saturday in Modena, which left eight injured, four of them seriously. The investigation has not yet determined whether the person responsible for the incident (who was arrested), Salim El Koudri, 31 years old and born in Italy to Moroccan parents, had radicalized into jihadist fanaticism, but it has established precedents of mental instability: between 2022 and 2024, El Koudri was undergoing treatment for schizophrenia disorders.
Read more Xavi Pascual will leave Barcelona and head to Dubai
In fact, the Interior Minister, Matteo Piantedosi, stated early Sunday afternoon that, for the moment, “the act seems mainly attributable to a situation of psychiatric distress,” and added: “There is nothing that has escaped us from the point of view of anti-terrorist prevention.”
In any case, the leader of the League and Vice President of the Italian Government, the far-right Matteo Salvini, already attacked the driver on Saturday, calling him a “second-generation criminal,” and called for the expulsion of immigrants who commit crimes. He thus appealed to the concept of “remigration,” the deportation of foreigners considered not to adapt to the customs of a country. A slogan introduced by the German far-right party AFD and promoted in Spain by Vox.
Salvini was answered by Antonio Tajani, also Vice President of the Government and leader of Forza Italia, the moderate part of the right-wing Executive, to remind him that the detainee “is an Italian citizen.”
Amid this right-wing debate, where positions are being taken ahead of elections to be held within a year, the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, remains silent. This Sunday she visited the injured along with the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, and for now maintains an institutional profile.
The mayor of Modena, Massimo Mezzetti, an independent from a left-wing coalition, has intervened in the political discussion to point out that among the neighbors who subdued and neutralized the person responsible for the hit-and-run were two Egyptians. He also addressed comments on social media that “fuel anger and resentment.” “The foreign young people who intervened are the clearest demonstration of the falsehoods of this lynching. In the face of these events, lucidity and solidarity are needed, not blowing on unfounded resentment,” he declared.
The political discussion flared up from the first minute without the motive for the hit-and-run being clear yet, although it initially recalled serious attacks in recent years such as those in Nice and Berlin in 2016 (whose perpetrator was shot days later in Milan) or in Barcelona in 2017. If it were finally a jihadist attack — something the Interior Ministry almost seems to rule out — it would be the first in Italy, and certainly the first intentional multiple hit-and-run in recent times.
The police have not found any connections of El Koudri, an Economics graduate, with no criminal record and residing in a town near Modena, to jihadist circles so far. The detainee has also not answered prosecutors’ questions. Investigators have verified that Meta closed his social media accounts some time ago, something that happens when the user violates the company’s usage rules in their opinions and comments. However, the company must report it to authorities if it is due to signs of violent radicalization, and there is no record that it did so.
It is not difficult to decipher what is happening on the right, nervous about the polls, which for the first time warn of a possible opposition victory. There is a competition for the most extreme space, which until now was between Meloni and Salvini, but where the new ultra star has emerged, former general Roberto Vanacci, with his new party, Futuro Nacional.
That is why Salvini took only a few minutes to come out on stage as soon as the name of the perpetrator of the incident was known. “In too many Italian cities, the integration of the so-called second generations has failed,” he said, then proposing a points-based residence permit, revocable in case of serious crimes. About what happened in Modena, Vanacci, who accuses the Government of weakness and having betrayed its voters, states: “These are cultures incompatible with that of the host country, and must be subjected to remigration, (…) it is the only solution.”
The Government coalition, however, also perceives an electoral cost of the populist drift: eight out of ten Italians cannot stand the American Donald Trump, according to polls; and, above all, in Italy the clash between the Pope and the White House and his severe criticism of the demonization of immigrants weighs heavily.
Forza Italia is already distancing itself in search of the traditional conservative and centrist voter. One of its proposals on this issue is to establish the ius scholae, that is, to grant nationality to children of foreigners or those who arrived in Italy very young and who complete the two compulsory school cycles, which last 10 years. In addition, what was Berlusconi’s party is positioning itself ahead of a possible electoral tie, where it could also negotiate possible alliances with the current opposition.
