Meloni condemns antisemitism among ruling party's youth league

Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has condemned racist and antisemitic remarks made by some members of the ruling Brothers of Italy party’s youth league.

Speaking to reporters in Brussels, Meloni said antisemitism and racism are incompatible with the party after two leading members of the National Youth resigned over alleged antisemtic remarks made against a Jewish Senator.

“I have said many times and repeat, I think that those who have racist, antisemitic or nostalgic feelings have simply got their home wrong, because these feelings are incompatible with the Brothers of Italy, they are incompatible with the Italian right, they are incompatible with the political line which we have clearly defined in recent years, and therefore I do not accept that there are ambiguities on this,” she said.

Meloni’s comments come after a report appeared in the left-wing online newspaper, Fanpage, which claimed it had video and audio recordings of some National Youth members using racist slurs and making Nazi salutes.

But Meloni also took a swipe at Fanpage’s reporting methods.

“I think that if we want to call it a journalistic investigation, the same attitude and the same investigation would be carried out in all the youth organisations of other political parties. We don’t know what could come out, we won’t know. You know why? Because in the history of the Italian Republic, what Fanpage did with Brothers of Italy is a first,” she said.

“It has never even been considered that they could infiltrate a political organisation, secretly record its meetings, also record the personal affairs of minors.”

The Fanpage investigation, entitled ‘Melonian Youth’, has sent shockwaves through the Brothers of Italy at the same time as Meloni has been seeking to cement a reputation as a moderate voice on the EU stage.

There has also been outrage from members of the Jewish Community of Rome, with some calling on Meloni to punish the youth wing members exposed in the investigation. 

“The Jewish Community of Rome condemns the shameful images of racism and antisemitism that emerged from the Fanpage investigation,” president Victor Fadlun posted on X.

He’s urged the party to take “appropriate action,” saying it was “imperative that society” reacts against discrimination.

Brothers of Italy has its roots in the Italian Social Movement (MSI), formed in 1946 as a successor to Benito Mussolini’s fascist movement that ruled Italy for more than 20 years.

Meloni has repeatedly condemned the racist, anti-Jewish laws enacted by Mussolini in 1938 in a bid to turn her party into a mainstream conservative force.

But she has also ignored calls to declare herself “anti-fascist”, prompting some of her critics to say she has failed to fully distance herself from neo-fascism.