Italy:Right-wing leaders in Italy yesterday unleashed a flood of vitriolic anti-immigrant rhetoric and called for mass repatriation and the closing of the country's frontiers, amid a growing backlash against foreign workers.
Gianfranco Fini, the head of Italy's "post-fascists", led the way with an outburst against Gypsies. Speaking three days after the arrest of a Romanian of Roma origin for the savage robbery and murder of an Italian woman, Mr Fini said Gypsies considered "theft to be virtually legitimate and not immoral" and felt the same way about "not working because it has to be the women who do so, often by prostituting themselves".
Mr Fini leads the ultra-conservative National Alliance and was until last year deputy prime minister.
His remarks were an implicit snub to Romania's president, Traian Basescu, who appealed to Romanian and Italian politicians to "refrain from making statements that could make the situation more tense". On Friday night, three Romanians were beaten and knifed in a raid by masked attackers on their encampment in a Rome suburb.
Police continued to raid shanty towns in search of migrants judged to be a threat to law and order. Last week, the government approved an emergency decree allowing for the expulsion of EU citizens without appeal. The expulsion orders require the signature of a judge.
Four men were put on a plane to Bucharest, the Romanian capital, late on Friday. At the weekend, at least 24 further expulsion orders were signed. Mr Fini demanded more. He told a television interviewer all the Roma camps in Italy should be torn down and 100,000 to 200,000 people expelled. The interviewer noted on air that her guest had been applauded as he arrived.
Centre-left leaders deplored his behaviour. Anna Finocchiaro, the senate leader of the main government alliance, said he was "exploiting the emotions aroused by a brutal killing". Mr Fini may be positioning himself to take the leadership of the right from Silvio Berlusconi, who said Italy should enact a moratorium on the admission of Romanian workers such as the one secured by Britain.
- (Guardian service)