Uncomfortable: Italian Prime Minister must lay wreath on Liberation Day, which she actually wants to abolish | Abroad

Prime Minister Meloni stood side by side with Italian President Mattarella at the bottom of the steps of the huge national monument in Piazza Venezia, in the center of Rome. According to protocol, Sergio Mattarella strode alone up the steps to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Prime Minister Meloni was left a little uneasy on what was her very first Liberation Day. The 46-year-old prime minister has not celebrated Liberation Day all her life. From her political convictions, she has long regarded April 25 as a ‘day that divides and does not unite’. Just a few years ago, she proposed abolishing April 25 and replacing it with another national holiday.

‘Il giorno della liberazione’ is mainly regarded as a left-wing party in Italy. The partisans who, together with the Allies, liberated the country from Nazi fascism are seen as communists. In reality, the resistance consisted of a motley crew of fighters of all political colours: Christian Democrats, monarchists and, indeed, communists. They all had the same ideal: to liberate Italy from the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and his clique.

Italy has a bit of a strange relationship with World War II. Under the leadership of Mussolini, the country entered the war side by side with Germany and came out victorious together with the Americans and British. The partisans played a major role in this, the Italians themselves revolted against the Italian fascists and the German Nazis. In September 1943, the latter suddenly changed from allies to occupiers.

As a politician, Meloni has her roots in the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), the neo-fascist party that was founded immediately after World War II by veterans of the regime of dictator Mussolini. She joined the MSI youth movement in 1992. As Prime Minister, Meloni struggles with that legacy.

For a long time it was even unclear whether Meloni would be present at the celebration of April 25 in Piazza Venezia, while she cannot ignore it as prime minister. Her staff only confirmed last week that the prime minister would be present at the official ceremony in the center of Rome. In a long letter to the newspaper Corriere della Sera writes the Prime Minister this morning that ‘the right-wing parties in the Italian Parliament have expressed their incompatibility with any nostalgia for fascism’.