In Italy, Giorgia Meloni’s possible rise to power makes feminists fear the worst

For several years it has been considered the future of the Italian far right. She is Giorgia Meloniand if in Europe all eyes are on her, it is because she and her Brothers of Italy party could do so win the legislative elections caused by the resignation of Mario Draghi last July. They will take place this Sunday, September 25, to elect 600 parliamentarians, divided between the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies.

Favorite in polls, leads the center-right coalition, which brought together the Northern League of Matteo Salvini and Forza Italia, the party of Silvio Berlusconi, and could become prime minister. Together they could accumulate almost half of the votes this Sunday, between 46 and 48%.

Who is Giorgia Meloni?

Her debut in the Italian Social Movement, a post-fascist party, was captured by French television in 1996. We see Giorgia Meloni, 19, stating without batting an eyelid (and in French) his admiration for a certain Mussolini. In 2014 he became president of the Brothers of Italy, after leaving Silvio Berlusconi’s party.

At 45, this professional journalist could therefore become the first woman to lead the country.

A pronatalist politics at the center of Giorgia Meloni’s project

Can claim not to want to return to the right to abortion, Giorgia Meloni remains a ferocious one defender of motherhood and the traditional family (meaning by that, made up of a man and a woman raising children), like any good conservative party leader.

In a country where nearly three-quarters of doctors hide behind the no-abortion conscience clause, this is far from anecdotal.

“I never said I wanted to touch the 194 law [qui légalise l’avortement depuis 1978 et dont l’application laisse largement à désirer, ndlr], I have never said that. And I never said I wanted to change it, I said I wanted to apply it: I want to add some rights, that women who find themselves in a position to abort because they have no alternatives, perhaps for economic reasons, can have this possibility “insisted on Rai 3.

In The worldseveral committed Italian women are concerned about Giorgia Meloni’s projects for women, such as Maria Claudia Vigliani, a member of the Turin, city for women association:

“In Meloni’s program the woman does not seek motherhood by personal choice but for the nation or the homeland, for the demography. “

Even more than an opposition to abortion, Giorgia Meloni embodies this hard and nationalist right who wants to increase the birth rate and who fears a decline in population in the face of an influx of people from abroad. Women must have children and the survival of the country depends on this, Brothers of Italy summarizes: “The Italian population is decreasing. I’m not saying that foreigners shouldn’t have children but the conditions must be created for Italians to reproduce “declared Carlo Ciccioli, one of the leaders of the party.

Something to remember the great moments of pronatalist politics that was at the center of Mussolini’s fascist project …

For the Spanish political scientist specializing in the far-right Laura Mendez, her constant references to a Europe of patriots are nothing more than the old aspiration of a fascist Europe.

The femonationalism of Giorgia Meloni

Using women’s rights to defend an anti-migrant social project: it is the same strategy that is used, when Giorgia Meloni shared last August on her social networks the video of a woman sexually assaulted in the street by an asylum seeker. It is not up to her to want to fight against sexist and sexual violence, but to exploit them for political ends and to serve a xenophobic ideology. This is what we call femonationalism.

It is therefore not surprising to see Giorgia Meloni affirm her opposition in bulk “to the LGBT lobby”, “Gender ideology”, “To the culture of death”, “to the violence of Islamism”, “to mass immigration”And “to the great international finance”when she went to Spain last June to support the Spanish conservative Vox party.

What impact could this arrival at the helm of a European country have at the international level? Response to the outcome of the ballot to be held this Sunday, September 25 …

Photo credit: Vox España, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons