Supporters of Italy's populist Northern League party took to the streets of Milan today to protest against the start of talks to admit Muslim Turkey to the European Union and demanded a referendum on the issue.
Thousands of people rallied in the northern city's central square carrying banners.
"Without our history we are dead, our history is not up for sale," Mr Umberto Bossi, rabble-rousing leader of the anti-immigration Northern League said in a statement from his sickbed, where he is convalescing after a stroke.
Reforms minister Mr Roberto Calderoli, another Northern League member, told protesters he would ask for a referendum.
The 25 EU leaders and Turkey struck an historic deal on Friday to start talks in October next year on admitting the large Muslim nation to the bloc.
Justice Minister Roberto Castelli, speaking to the crowd gathered around Milan's gothic cathedral, told them to beware "a Muslim invasion" if Turkey were allowed into the EU.
"What will happen when 80 million Islamists with a high birth rate have the right to settle on our land?" he said to cheers and clapping.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is a staunch supporter of Turkey's accession and Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini today in a newspaper interview said the "prejudices" of the Northern League would not change the government line.
The Northern League, whose stronghold in the entrepreneurial north of the country is suffering from Asian and Eastern European competition, is traditionally against immigration.
Mr Bossi once said the navy should fire over the bows of the rickety boats of illegal migrants to deter them. The party toppled Mr Berlusconi's first government in 1994, but has been partly marginalised since Mr Bossi fell ill earlier this year.
Organisers said 50,000 people turned out for the march. Police said it was more like several thousand.