Italy’s new far-right Speaker of the Senate and President of the Chamber of Deputies

Jakob Lindelöf

Intern for the European Team, 

Global Human Rights Defence

The victory of Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing populist Fratelli d’Italia has seen her elected as Italy’s first female prime minister but is also now the head of the most far-right government in Italy since World War II  under Benito Mussolini. While this has taken most of the attention internationally, focus should also be put on the newly elected Speaker of the Senate (Italy’s upper house) and the President of the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house), Ignazio La Russa and Lorenzo Fontana respectively, and their connections to facist and far-right beliefs.

Ignazio La Russa, co-founder (alongside Meloni) of Fratelli d’Italia, began his political career as a member of the youth wing of the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement, a group founded by supporters of Mussolini after the Second World War. A 2018 video of his home showed fascist memorabilia and icons including a statue of Mussolini (Giuffrida, 2022). 

Lorenzo Fontana, the new President of the Chamber of Deputes, has a history of far-right beliefs in regards to abortion, LGBT issues, traditional values and immigration. He argues that Italian people are under attack due to the weakening of the traditional family, mass immigration, gender theory and the exodus of young Italians abroad. He characterised abortion as the biggest cause of femicide and called Putin’s Russia a model society that the West should strive towards (Oggiano, 2018; Kazmin & Ricozzi, 2022). Russia is a country that in 2018 saw the decriminalisation of domestic violence and sees the persecution of members of the LGBT community (Spring, 2018; Litvinova, 2019).

While it is not La Russa’s first time in government as he served as Minister of Defence under Silvio Berlusconi, the election of people into high positions with these connections with fascism or that currently hold extreme far-right beliefs are deemed to be a worrying trend that sees the normalisation of these beliefs in today’s society not only in Italy but also in other European countries. 

Sources and Further Reading

Giuffrida, A. (2022, October 13). Brothers of Italy politician who collects fascist relics 

elected senate speaker. The Guardian. Retrieved on date from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/13/ignazio-la-russa-brothers-of-italy-politician-fascist-relics-elected-senate-speaker

Kazmin, A. & Ricozzi, G. (2022, October 14). Italian parliament elects pro-Putin Eurosceptic 

as Speaker. Financial Times. Retrieved on date from https://www.ft.com/content/93fdba66-a437-43dc-9164-356d3b641258 

Litvinova, D. (2019, September 25). Masked men and murder: vigilantes terrorise LGBT+ 

Russians. Reuters. Retrieved on date fromhttps://www.reuters.com/article/russia-lgbt-crime-idUSL5N26A2IX 

Oggiano, F. (2018, June 1). Fontana, il ministro per la Famiglia contro aborto e coppie gay. 

Vanity Fair. Retrieved on date fromhttps://www.vanityfair.it/news/politica/2018/06/01/lorenzo-fontana-ministro-famiglia-gay-aborto-gender 

Spring, M. (2018, August 16). Decriminalisation of domestic violence in Russia leads to fall 

in reported cases. The Guardian. Retrieved on date from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/16/decriminalisation-of-domestic-violence-in-russia-leads-to-fall-in-reported-cases