In a rare interview on the eve of becoming the longest continually serving prime minister in the history of the Italian Republic, Giorgia Meloni reflected on her long journey from the post-Fascist right to a central place in the European politics she is changing.
By turns calm and combative, Ms. Meloni was at once funny and fierce.
Always expressive, she mused: “I should have gone into the theater. Imagine how much more fun I would have had! I don’t know how I ended up here but I did.”
Her unlikely ascent has already had a powerful effect beyond Italy’s borders. “Melonization,” or the numbing of horrifying history, has entered the lexicon. It denotes the process Ms. Meloni now personifies in which a post-Fascist party sheds the threat of violent authoritarianism and gains mainstream acceptance.
With Marine Le Pen, of the once-outcast French far right, a strong candidate in next year’s presidential election, and the hard-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, leading polls in that country, the Meloni effect is about to be tested at the core of postwar European integration.
Here are the takeaways from the interview, conducted in Italian in a lounge adjacent to Ms. Meloni’s Rome office.
Don’t Mess With Italy
The world’s eighth-largest economy has had to live with being perceived as the least of the major powers. Ms. Meloni is determined to change that. “I don’t like the idea of a submissive Italy, an Italy that sees itself as lesser than others,” she said. Her goal is to achieve “the biggest revolution that can happen in this nation — a revolution of pride.”
A born contrarian who joined the post-Fascist right at the age of 15 when it had no apparent chance of attaining power, she sees no reason Italy should not reinvent itself. “I don’t like others telling me what my limits are,” she said. “A ‘No’ is one of the things that mobilizes me the most.”
What goes for her goes also for her nation, as she always calls it, preferring that term to Republic or country. “I think what got me here was the courage to stand on the uncomfortable side of history,” Ms. Meloni said. “To opt to be against the current.”
“Courage” is her favorite word by some distance.
Things Are Tense With Trump
Given her ambitions for her country, it was not surprising that Ms. Meloni bridled recently when President Trump suggested she had “begged” to be photographed beside him in June at the Group of 7 summit in France.
“It’s evident that with Donald Trump, I believed things would be easier, given our convergence on immigration and woke culture,” Ms Meloni told me. “Things have turned out otherwise.”
In June she became the first of several insulted European leaders to hit back hard at Mr. Trump, whom she berated: “Italy and I never beg.”
The two leaders have not spoken in several weeks, she revealed. Asked if she and Mr. Trump would talk after the summer break, she hesitated. “Well, we will see.”
Still, she regrets nothing: “I continue to believe that the unity of the West is something very important. I don’t decide Italian strategy on the basis of my personal relations.”
Feminists Fought the Wrong Battles
Ms. Meloni has been criticized for choosing to be called “il presidente” in the masculine form in Italian. She told me she thinks that feminists have fought “the wrong battles” over things like gender quotas.
“What interests me is whether I’m free to become president of the Council of Ministers,” she says, using the formal name for the Italian cabinet and its prime minister. “That’s equality, not being called ‘la presidenta.’”
She is renowned for declaring “I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am Christian. They cannot take this away from me! They will not take this away from me!”
So I asked Ms. Meloni why her cri de coeur has resonated so much. “Because it struck a chord that millions of people felt,” she said. “Feeling threatened in your most authentic, basic identity. It gave an easy slogan to an emotional rebellion.”
Part of that “basic identity” is being a woman, Ms. Meloni said, without saying how it is threatened. She demurred when I asked if she is a feminist.
My Economy Is Better Than the Left’s
Ms. Meloni was furious when I cited the left’s criticism of her handling of the economy. She rattled off a long list of “parameters” — employment, inflation, illegal migrant landings, health spending, market spreads. “Tell me if they are not better!”
These numbers have indeed moved in a positive direction, albeit sometimes fractionally.
“But it’s possible,” she said with her characteristic sarcastic wit, “that I did nothing!”
That is the accusation against her. Elly Schlein, the leader of the center-left Democratic Party, cited Italy’s paltry economic growth rate of 0.5 percent, a sharp decline in real wages, some of Europe’s highest energy bills and depleted public hospitals as evidence of a “wasted historic opportunity.”
Italians will decide in next year’s election who is right.
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