‘She’s very charismatic’: could Giorgia Meloni become Italy’s first far-right leader since Mussolini?

Brothers of Italy leads far-right alliance in pole position for snap summer election

When the far right took power in Ladispoli, a beach town near Rome, in 2017, ending 20 years of leftwing administration, among its priorities was naming a square after Giorgio Almirante, a minister in Benito Mussolini's dictatorship and founder of the neofascist Italian Social Movement (MSI).

Protests from anti-fascist groups failed to thwart the plan, and in 2019 the nameplate was unveiled during a ceremony that included a blessing from the priest of the church on the same square. Almirante was described by mayor Alessandro Grando, who won a second term in June, as the father of Italian rightwing socialism and point of reference for many Italians".