Success of far-right Brothers of Italy raises fears of fascist revival

Political party has overtaken Matteo Salvini's far-right League as Italy's biggest party in opinion polls

Spartaco Perini spoke overwhelmingly about his time as a second world war resistance fighter in the days before he died. The founder of one of Italy's first antifascism groups in Colle San Marco, a hamlet of Ascoli Piceno in the central Marche region, he was lauded by the Allied forces for his role as a fearless informant, work that helped to liberate Europe from the Nazis and end Benito Mussolini's dictatorship. But he had one regret.

In his last few days, he spoke a lot about the great things the partisans did to restore freedom and bring about democracy," said Pietro Perini, the partisan's son and president of the Ascoli Piceno unit of Anpi, an anti-fascism organisation. But he also felt they made one error - and that was not to have eradicated it [fascism] completely."