Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Tuesday urged leaders of her political party to reject anti-Semitism, racism and nostalgia for totalitarian regimes after an Italian media outlet caught members of her party’s youth wing on hidden camera glorifying fascism.
“I am angry and saddened by the way we have been portrayed by the behavior of some young people in our movement,” Meloni wrote in an email, seen by The New York Times, to the directors of her party, Brothers of Italy.
The story, which aired in two episodes last month, was filmed by a journalist from Italian media outlet Fanpage.it who posed as an activist from the National Youth, the youth arm of Brothers of Italy.
According to the report, the hidden camera showed members of the movement making fascist salutes, praising Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, ordering others to hand out stickers with fascist slogans and defining themselves as fascists. People identified by the report as members of the youth group were filmed shouting “Sieg heil,” an expression adopted by the Nazis. Other people identified as members of the youth wing were filmed making racist and anti-Semitic remarks.
The report was a blow to Meloni, who, despite having roots in a party born out of the remnants of fascism, has sought to put that past behind her and has vowed to present herself as a modern and pragmatic leader, repeatedly saying that fascism belonged to history.
But nearly two years into office, he had to remind his party’s leadership to leave that legacy behind. This showed that the transformation was not complete and that nostalgia for elements of Italy’s darkest past persists, at least in some quarters of a party that has grown from a fringe movement to become Italy’s largest governing force.
“At my age, will I have to see this again?” asked Liliana Segre, a 93-year-old senator and Holocaust survivor, on Italian television after seeing the Fanpage reports. “Will they have to throw me out of my country like they once did?”
Left-wing lawmakers rose up. Michela Di Biase, a lawmaker for Italy’s Democratic Party, accused the youth of Meloni’s party of idealizing those who “stained the history of our country with the blood of persecution.”
Meloni and his party’s MPs criticised the journalist’s methods, saying the report did not reflect the true identity of their party or its youth movement, but rather a small minority. Luca Ciriani, a Brothers of Italy MP, said the report had been put together from fragmented and decontextualised images. Other party members recognised and condemned the behaviour.
But Ms. Meloni also felt the need to speak out.
“There is no place in our ranks for those who play a caricatured role that only serves the narrative our opponents want to create about us,” he wrote in the letter. “We and I have no time to waste on those who want to push us back.”
He also reminded party leaders that Brothers of Italy adhered to the 2019 European Parliament resolution condemning all 20th-century dictatorships. It is “a position,” he said, “that I have no intention of questioning.”
Two members of the youth section, Elisa Segnini and Flaminia Pace, who were named in the report, left their official roles after the report emerged but were not expelled from the movement, said Donatella Di Nitto, a spokeswoman for Brothers of Italy.
Ms. Segnini left her job as an aide to a party lawmaker, and Ms. Pace resigned from her position on the Italian Youth Council, a group representing young people.
Di Nitto said Segnini and Pace would not comment on the matter. He added that there had been no other resignations or expulsions “for now.”