European Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici should not "dare" to call Italy's governing parties "little Mussolinis", Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio said Thursday.
Moscovici had said earlier that the rise of European populists showed that "today there is a climate that very much resembles the 1930s. Certainly, we must not exaggerate, clearly there isn't Hitler, perhaps little Mussolinis".
Di Maio, leader of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S), said "the attitude from some European commissioners is unacceptable, really intolerable.
"They dare to say that in Italy there are many little Mussolinis, they should not dare!".
The M5S is allied in government with the anti-migrant Euroskeptic League party of Interior Minister and Deputy Premier Matteo salvini.
Both parties have been dubbed populist, a label they do not disdain.
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