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Protect abortion and gay rights, Italy warned after hard-Right election victory

Giorgia Meloni - Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters
Giorgia Meloni - Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters

France on Monday warned Italy not to wind back gay rights or women’s access to abortion hours after the country elected its most Right-wing government since the Second World War.

A Right-wing alliance led by Giorgia Meloni, the head of the Brothers of Italy party, secured around 44 per cent of the vote and a comfortable majority in both chambers of parliament.

Elisabeth Borne, the French prime minister, reacted to the result by saying that the EU had certain values to uphold, such as those on abortion and human rights.

“We will be attentive, with the president of the European Commission, that these values of human rights, the respect of one another, notably the respect of abortion rights, are respected by all,” she told French television. “In Europe, we have certain values, and obviously we will be vigilant.”

There is concern in European capitals that Brothers of Italy, which traces its political heritage back to the country’s fascist movement, might try to infringe on individual rights.

Ms Meloni has in the past railed against “LGBT lobbies” and made the defence of what she terms white, Christian civilisation a key priority.

While pledging not to tamper with Italy’s abortion laws, she has raised concern among rights advocates by saying she wants to “give to women who think abortion is their only choice the right to make a different choice”.

Staff members of Brothers of Italy celebrate the election result in Rome - Alessandra Benedetti/Corbis/Getty Images
Staff members of Brothers of Italy celebrate the election result in Rome - Alessandra Benedetti/Corbis/Getty Images

The new government will take a hard-line stance against migrants and refugees trying to reach Italy across the Mediterranean, which could also lead to clashes with the EU.

There is also concern across the West that the new administration might take a softer line on Russia and the war in Ukraine.

Both Silvio Berlusconi and Matteo Salvini have been long-term cheerleaders of Vladimir Putin, with the latter opposing sanctions and the sending of Italian weapons to the Ukrainians.

Mr Berlusconi, who was prime minister three times, sparked outrage last week when he suggested Putin had been forced to invade Ukraine and wanted to install “decent people” in power in Kyiv.

Ms Meloni has supported sanctions and weapons shipments, however. "We are likely to see slow and difficult negotiations between the three parties to form a government over the next few weeks. If that happens then Italy's ability to respond swiftly to the crisis in Ukraine will be compromised," said Helena Ivanov, a European politics research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, a UK-based think tank.

Ms Meloni should be able to resist pressure from either Mr Salvini or Mr Berlusconi to go soft on Moscow because her party performed so much better than theirs - Brothers of Italy won 26% of votes, whereas the League won 9% and Forza Italia clinched just 8%.

President Putin will try to make as much political capital out of the Italian election result as possible, given that two out of the three alliance parties have expressed pro-Moscow views. "He will use any leeway he can. He will see this as a chink in Europe's armour," said Dr Ivanov.

An admirer of Marine Le Pen in France, the far-right Vox party in Spain and Viktor Orban in Hungary, she is set to become Italy’s first female prime minister.

In a victory speech in Rome, she said: “The big goal that we set ourselves…was that Italians can again be proud to be Italians and to wave the tricolour flag.”

Nationalists across Europe applauded the victory, saying it had delivered “a lesson in humility” to the EU.

“The Italian people has decided to take its destiny in hand by electing a patriotic and sovereigntist government,” Ms Le Pen, the leader of France’s far-Right National Rally party, wrote on Twitter.

“Congratulations to Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini for having resisted the threats of an anti-democratic and arrogant European Union by winning this great victory.”

Jordan Bardella, an MEP from National Rally, said Italians had delivered “a lesson in humility to the European Union, which, through the voice of Mme [Ursula] von der Leyen, had wanted to dictate the vote.”

Balazs Orban, a political director to Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, also sent congratulations. “In these difficult times, we need more than ever friends who share a common vision and approach to Europe’s challenges,” he said.

There was controversy on the eve of the election when Ms von der Leyen, the head of the European Commission, on Sunday cited the examples of Poland and Hungary and that “if things go in a difficult direction” under a hard-Right Italian government, the EU had “tools” to rein the country in.