The president of an Italian public company has had no choice but to resign after it was learned that, to present himself after being appointed to the position, he used a piece of a terrible speech by the dictator Benito Mussolini. This is Claudio Anastasio, who had been elected in November by the Government of Giorgia Meloni as president of the company 3-I, which manages the software of various state agencies such as the Italian institute in charge of Social Security benefits (INPS). . As revealed by the newspaper La Repubblica, when he took office he sent an email to the members of the board of directors in which he practically copied the 1925 speech in which Mussolini claimed responsibility for the murder of the socialist Giacomo Matteotti, considered a key moment in the beginning of the dictatorship in Italy.
“I declare here, in your presence, and in the presence of the entire Italian Government, that I assume (by myself!) the responsibility of 3-I (political! moral! historical!) of everything that has happened” , wrote Anastasio, who simply copied Mussolini and added the name of the company.
The matter has generated a strong controversy in the country and generates new problems for Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy, a party heir to the post-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI). During her youth, she declared herself an admirer of Mussolini, but now she is making great efforts to stage her rejection of fascism. There was already controversy in November, when it emerged that Galeazzo Bignami, a Brotherhood deputy from Italy who photographed himself dressed as a Nazi during a bachelor party, had been appointed deputy minister. Apparently, Anastasio is a close friend of Rachele Mussolini, granddaughter of the Duce and councilor for Brothers of Italy in the Rome City Council. He was one of the first positions appointed in public companies by the new right-wing Italian Executive, specifically for this company that aspires to become the information center of the Italian State.
“This is not a government, it is an apology for daily fascism”, criticized the MEP of the Democratic Party (PD) Pina Picierno, vice president of the European Parliament. “The question that arises and that cannot be avoided is whether we intend to proceed with the occupation of all available positions of power with lightness and excessive indifference, placing unlikely characters and not up to the task in delicate positions,” said Social Democratic Senator Dario Parrini . For PD deputy Roberto Morassut, vice president of the Matteotti Foundation, Anastasio is “just a poor hothead who probably doesn’t realize what he has done and written. He is talking about the most heinous state crime in Italian history ”.
