“Vote not to see her again”

A far-right councilor in Italy has managed to get even Matteo Salvini deny him. The country votes on September 25 and its politicians try to attract the attention of the voter by all means, mainly on social networks. Alessio Di Giulioa member of the League in Florence, published a video on Sunday in which he takes advantage of a Roma woman to launch a xenophobic proclamation.

Di Giulio ended up deleting the images, but by then they were already out of his control, going viral. It’s about a video selfie. The mayor walks down the street, approaches the woman, who smiles, and makes a promise to all his followers: “On September 25, the League votes to never see her again, to never see her again.” She tells him in a good tone “no, don’t say that”, and later a “I’m not afraid”.

In the text commentary that accompanies this, Di Giulio cites the article of the Penal Code that criminalizes the crime of harassing begging.

Salvini: “He made a fool of himself”

Salvini, former vice president and former Minister of the Interior and known for not exactly hiding his opinion on these matters, has surprised himself by stepping out to publicly reprimand his rank-and-file partner: “He was wrong, he made a fool of himself. Problems are solved with ordinances, with laws , with the police. The problem of the gypsy camps cannot be solved with a video and focusing it on one person”.

“As interior minister I cleared the gypsy camps by enforcing the law,” Salvini said in a television interview. According to his answers, Di Giulio’s punishment ends in this public reprimand, so it is not contemplated to remove him from the lists.

Di Giulio has defended himself with a message also on his social networks in which more than repentant – he does not apologize – he attacks and is outraged. He defends that he is not racist because his girlfriend “is Nigerian”.

[Gina Lollobrigida, candidata al Senado en Italia a sus 95 años con un partido antisistema]

Di Giulio: “It was a joke”

“I do not see any opinion-maker -he complains- denouncing the harassing begging in the big cities of Tuscany. We could also talk about the illegal gypsy camps and the people forced to ask for money at traffic lights or on the street, but I doubt that no left-wing intellectual wants to get into the matter”.

In a later interview, he states that everything “was a joke” and that the woman in the video “followed him down the street” mistaking him “for a tourist”, who “wanted money”. “This lady does not understand that she has to go to work. Begging is not legal,” she insists.

The Italian campaign is being disputed largely on social networks, but in addition to the benefit of the repercussion there is also the detriment of local leaders jumping to ‘stardom’ who weigh down the line of their national leaders. The League wants this to remain an anecdote, while the rest of the forces try to row in the opposite direction.