Gadlfy comedian-turned-politician
Beppe Grillo on Tuesday blamed the press for painting him as an
anti-Semite, after he outraged Jewish leaders on Monday with a
blog post in which he borrowed from a classic Holocaust memoir
to attack opponents including Premier Matteo Renzi and President
Giorgio Napolitano.
"Thanks to Italian media, I was dubbed a fuhrer by German
papers," the leader of the anti-establishment, anti-euro 5-Star
Movement (M5S) told a Lower House press conference.
Grillo, whose blog is the fulcrum of his Internet-based
political movement, titled his post 'If This Is a Country' - a
play on Holocaust survivor Primo Levis's classic work, If This
Is a Man.
Levi, a Jewish-Italian writer, wrote his masterpiece memoir
about the year he spent in the Nazi's Auschwitz death camp after
his arrest as a member of the Italian anti-Fascist Resistance
during the Second World War.
Renzo Gattegna, president of the Union of Italian Jewish
Communities, slammed Grillo's post as an "infamous
provocation...an obscenity about which one cannot be silent".
The vitriol-tongued M5S leader proceeded to lash out at
journalists, whom he blames for publishing what he calls
"government lies".
"How can you be asking such stupid questions? Newspapers
are living on borrowed time: you'll be looking for another job,"
he promised them.
In a reference to the saga of tax-fraud convict and
billionaire ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi, who is being allowed
to serve the remainder of his four-year suspended sentence doing
community service, Grillo went on to urge Italians to dodge
taxes.
"He dodged millions in taxes, and all he has to do is spend
half an hour a week at a senior center. I tell everyone: go
ahead and dodge as much as you can, it's a good investment,"
Grillo said.
"Berlusconi is banned from public office, but gets to meet
with the president of the Republic (Giorgio Napolitano) anyway,"
added the comedian, who is also banned from running for office
after a 1980 vehicular manslaughter conviction for a car
accident in which he was the driver and three passengers died.
In spite of his conviction, Grillo has himself met with
Napolitano after his M5S movement was catapulted to being the
number-two party in the last general elections.
Grillo also said the government's proposed new election
law, which is designed to produce a clear winner in the next
national vote, is stillborn.
The so-called Italicum bill, stemming from an agreement
between then-centre-left Democratic Party (PD) chief Matteo
Renzi, now premier, and centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi,
is slated to go to the Senate for scrutiny.
"The Italicum is a non-starter, because they know the M5S
will vote it down," he said.
Also on Tuesday, the leader of the anti-immigrant National
Front (FN) party in France, Marine Le Pen, said she had
approached Grillo about forming an alliance because he is among
"those who are sincerely aware of the dramatic situation of our
peoples thanks to the EU, and who want their country to return
to sovereignty".
Grillo turned the proposal down.
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