What The Far Right Can’t Take From Us, And What It Can — Notes From A Young Italian In Paris

PARIS — September 25, 2022 is one of those dates I will never forget. Italians had spent to day voting in national parliamentary elections, and the results were clear: the far-right won, and Giorgia Meloni would be the next prime minister.

Meloni’s far-right is of a different kind. She rose to power in a country that for the past century has struggled to deal with its past, which included the birth of Fascism under Benito Mussolini and the continuation of his ideology with the Italian Social Movement (MSI). Meloni started her political career in the MSI, back when she used to say that Mussolini did what he did for Italy and the Italian people, and that the race laws were the dictator’s only mistake.

That election day, sitting alone in my 20 m² studio in Lille, in the north of France, I started crying, a seeming irrational reaction for a privileged 20-year-old who corresponds to what Meloni’s government sees as a “true Italian.” And yet I was scared to tears.

It was a fear that has borne out over the past two years, not for myself, but for certain people close to me, and those I don’t even know, who are suffering the consequences of this government and its hatred. I fear for my friend who was born a boy but never felt like one, because to Meloni she doesn’t have the “unilateral right to proclaim herself a woman.” I fear for my friends who want kids with their same-sex partner in the future, but might not be able to because, according to the prime minister, “kids have a right to have a mom and a dad,” while surrogacy is “slavery of the third millennium.” I fear for those like my high school friend, whose dad — the only one with a job in his family — makes €1200 a month as a carpenter at the port of Naples, because the Italian executive is against one of the fundamental pillars of Italian democracy: progressive taxation.

Those same fears of a far-right takeover are now palpable in the neighboring country where I live — and beyond.

The scapegoats

Living in Paris now, I have friends that will be targets of the racist, ultra-conservative and neo-liberal agenda of the National Rally (RN), as well as others who, just like me, are scared of what will happen to the rest of us.

One of my closest friends here moved to France with her family when she was 12. She was born in Rome to Moroccan parents and she is a Muslim, the stigmatized personification of what Marine Le Pen and Giorgia Meloni are selling to French and Italian people as the evil of our societies.

The France envisioned by Marine Le Pen is white, Catholic, binary and heterosexual

In the country that the National Rally promises to French people, there’s no room for her. Because of her origins, she would be exposed to an executive that shouts at black members of Parliaments to “go back to Africa,” and that has traditionally stigmatized and diminished her religious beliefs. And then the concept, rooted in the fascist ideology, of priorité nationale (national priority), which the RN plans on including in the Constitution, would limit the welfare state for non-French citizens, and prevent individuals with a double citizenship from accessing what RN leader Jordan Bardella defines as “extremely sensitive” positions.

My friend is still one of the lucky ones. For other migrants, especially the sans papier (so-called “illegal” migrants”), the far-right in France will establish a full-fledged police state that will put their safety and survival at serious risk. The party is brainwashing French society into thinking that the sans papier are not humans: they are a commodity to exploit or a rusty piece of furniture on the side of the street that you must get rid of. If the far-right ends up in power, they will be prevented from accessing basic healthcare, and eventually will likely be chased down and kicked out of the country.

The France envisioned by Marine Le Pen is white, Catholic, binary and heterosexual, where it is not enough to fit this profile, but necessary to hate those who are different. Just like Meloni and her party in Italy, whose members enjoy to this day performing the Roman salute while screaming “Sieg Heil,” praising Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and using unspeakable insults against black people, Muslims and Jews, the RN wants to reestablish a social order that dates back a century — enforced by constant violence.

Fighting against yourself

Le Pen and Meloni’s ideals align with those of dictators and enemies of democracy, going beyond Mussolini and Vichy Regime chief Philippe Pétain. Vladimir Putin, Narendra Modi and Viktor Orban have — to different extents — shred their respective democracies to pieces, fusing a cult of personality with the idea of “national supremacy” that offer textbook examples of what modern fascism looks like.

But no matter what you call it, what all these regimes have in common is a mechanism as old as human societies: finding a scapegoat as a way to gain support of the majority by designating a smaller group responsible for all that is wrong around us.

In a modern Fascist regime, finding a scapegoat is all that matters. Wages stagnate while prices rise, public services are engulfed because of budget cuts, and the welfare state crumbles before our eyes because of our own choices. But blaming ourselves is not the easy way out. It’s always better to blame someone else for our own mistakes.

Scapegoats differ around the world. In Europe, as in the U.S., it is those that try to escape hardship, the “others.” In other places it can be your friends and neighbors, like in India.

A friend from Delhi once told me that her best friend is a Muslim, while she comes from a Hindu family. When my friend was in school, her best friend would visit her often, and she would always find food waiting for her. The food was always respectful of her religious beliefs: if they ate meat, they would make sure not to cook pork, so that her friend could dine with the rest of the family too. A majority of Indians are Hindus, but they would always adapt to the minority, because what brought friends, families or even complete strangers together was always a bond running deeper than religious divisions. And then Modi came.

The India that Modi envisions is Hindu. To him, one of the most diverse countries on earth, where equality has been a sacrosanct pillar ever since independence, there’s enough room for one group only. Being a Muslim in India increasingly means being the “other,” even if they account for 14% of the nation’s population. With the massive economic growth of recent decades concentrated among a small elite, those left behind are looking for someone to blame.

To hope or not to hope

But Modi can only go so far. Even though he won, recent elections were a blow to his popularity. Part of the population, especially the youth, rejects the populist and ultra-conservative propaganda put forward by the Indian Prime Minister. While the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which included Modi’s BJP party, was the most voted electoral coalition in all age groups, the share of votes for the INDIA opposition coalition increased as the age of voters decreased.

Is there a sign of hope in our next generation? The tendency looks even clearer in Italy and France. At the European elections, Brothers of Italy (FdI), Meloni’s party, was the fourth-most voted among those aged 18 to 29, while the top vote-getter was the center-left Democratic Party (PD). Projections suggest that the same thing happened in France on June 30, with the youth mainly voting for the leftist New Popular Front (NFP) coalition.

In light of these facts, it would be easy to say that the youth wants change, that it believes in progress and in a fair society. That we choose humanity over hatred. This is what I see here in Paris, when I discuss this topic with friends, when I go to protests, when I go to university.

When I go to Place de la République for rallies, I feel part of something bigger.

But this is not real life. Paris is a bubble that is everything but representative of what society believes in. The same goes for the spoiled, upper-class and detached-from-reality youth that attends prestigious institutions in big cities, the one to which I belong. And there is a clear divide between this youth and the one I see when I go back home, to the outskirts of Naples.

There are still people like a high school friend I recently met after years, excited for the far-right takeover and amused at the idea of “beating communists outside university.” But ultimately, let’s not forget that democracy is not the rule of the youth, but the rule of the people. And the people have spoken against democracy in India, in Italy and now in France, whether the youth likes it or not.

That feeling of dismay

Place de la République has been a hotspot for anti-far right protests since June 9, when Emmanuel Macron announced snap legislative elections in light of his party’s poor performance at the European Parliament elections. The Monument à la République (Monument to the Republic) standing at the center of the square is now filled with graffiti expressing support for the New Popular Front, against the National Rally, for the end of the genocide in Gaza and the liberation of Palestine. Taken together, the spray paint articulates the values that I and millions of other young people in France and abroad stand for.

Paris can sometimes feel like the center of the world, but it can also make you feel like you’re all alone. People mostly walk with their heads down, interactions are rare, individualism reigns. Before June 9, I never felt a sense of belonging, engulfed with the big city mentality that always reminds you that you’re on your own.

Yet, when I go to Place de la République for rallies, I feel part of something bigger, a common bloc encompassing not only the youth, but all those that do not agree with what is going on.

While politicians openly speak of victory against the far-right, of hope, of a different future, I scream, dance, hug and fight not because I believe in it, but because I see it as a last moment of freedom before everything will change. I will be fine, most of us will be fine, and things will go back to normal eventually. The problem is that in the process, too many people will suffer real consequences of the hatred that is taking over our societies.