General Roberto Vannacci, recently suspended from the Italian Army for the publication of a book in which he attacked immigrants, environmentalists, feminists and homosexuals, has found a new job: that of MEP. After months of courting him, the far-right Matteo Salvini, leader of the League and Giorgia Meloni's deputy prime minister, has announced that he has reserved a place for him on the lists of his party for the European Parliament.
Vannacci, who was commander of the military unit Task Force 45 during the war in Afghanistan, published a provocative book last year titled Il mondo alcontrary (The World Upside Down), a self-published volume that became a best seller in Italy.
In it, he wrote things like that homosexuals are not “normal” and that if this is considered so it is because of the “conspiracies of the international gay world.” He also told the Italian volleyball champion Paola Egonu that she was not “fully Italian” because “it is evident that her physical features do not represent Italianness,” because she is black and of African origins. Furthermore, he denied climate change and believed that women should stay at home and take care of their children.
The leader of the League says that, although he does not share all of the general's reflections, "he defends the right of each person to express their own ideas." “I will be an independent candidate who maintains his own identity and who will fight, bravely, to affirm his values of homeland, traditions, family, sovereignty and identity, which I broadly share with the League,” Vannacci responded.
He has not yet clarified whether he will be the head of the list for the elections to be held at the beginning of June, but it does seem evident that Salvini is willing to do anything to try to get some point over his competitors. After being overshadowed by Meloni's push, the polls place the League at 8% of voting intentions, even below Forza Italia, and very far from Brothers of Italy, which he would win comfortably.
