Schlein slams Lollobrigida for 'supremacist' language

(ANSA) - ROME, APR 18 - Centre-left opposition Democratic Party (PD) lreader Elly Schlein on Tuesday criticised Agriculture and Food Sovereignty Minsiter Francesco Lollobrigida for saying Italy's low birth rate meant Italians were enduring "ethnic replacement", saying the ministers words smacked of "supremacist" tropes and took Italy back to the days of Fascism.
    "Minister Lollobrigida's words are disgusting, they are unacceptable words from someone in his position. They take us back to the 1930s, they are words that have the flavour of white supremacism', said Schlein.
    "I hope that (Premier) Giorgia Meloni and the government will distance themselves from these statements,' she concluded, "made on the day that President (Sergio) Mattarella is visiting Auschwitz." Lollobrigida, a senior member of Meloni's rightwing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, said earlier that "births cannot be incentivised by persuading people to spend more time at home, so that relations intensify, as some people have said.
    "The way (to boost Italy's flagging birth rate) is to build a welfare that enables (women) to work and have a family, support young couples to find jobs. We can't give in to the idea of ethnic replacement: The Italians are having fewer children, so we'll replace them with someone else. That's not the way".
    Fascist dictator Bentio Mussolini urged loyal Fascist mothers to have as many children as they could and gave awards to parents with large families.
    Before becoming premier, Meloni in some of her fiery election campaign speeches paid lip service into the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, which claims there are plots to substitute historical populations with migrants.
    Since becoming premier she has not repeated those statements.
    (ANSA).