(see related stories on Berlusconi)
Ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi on
Tuesday compared comedian-turned-politician Beppe Grillo, the
leader of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S), to Adolf
Hitler and said the Italian people should fear him.
"The Italian people should learn to be afraid of Grillo,"
said Berlusconi, who continues to lead his centre-right
opposition Forza Italia party from outside parliament after
being ejected from the Senate last year following a definitive
tax-fraud conviction.
"You can see it in the way he organises his sect, which
reminds me of characters like Robespierre or Marx and Lenin,"
the 77-year-old billionaire told one of his Mediaset channels.
"Grillo is the prototype of these sort of men, Hitler
included".
Berlusconi has started intense campaigning on television
with FI trailing in third place in the polls before next month's
European elections, behind Premier Matteo Renzi's centre-left
Democratic Party (PD) and the M5S.
Grillo, who often calls Berlusconi the "psycho-dwarf", hit
back almost immediately.
"Berlusconi is beyond the tomb and you are mediums (for
him)," Grillo told Italian reporters, whom he says are biased
towards the traditional parties.
He also reiterated that the Internet-based M5S, which
captured a quarter of the vote at last year's general election,
is committed to destroying a political system that he blames for
producing corruption and economic decline.
"This era is over. The era of the parties is over," Grillo
said at the fringes of a general meeting of troubled bank Monte
dei Paschi di Siena.
"They should all be sent packing and they know that we will
win the (European) elections".
Berlusconi, meanwhile, also attacked German Chancellor
Angela Merkel.
"Give us back (Helmut) Kohl," said the ex-premier, who
irked Germans at the weekend by saying they denied the existence
of Nazi concentration camps.
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