The far-right Brothers of Italy party has launched a new member of the Mussolini family into national politics, choosing Rachele Mussolini as a parliamentary candidate in the Lazio region.
A 43-year-old city councillor in Rome, she is the daughter of Benito Mussolini’s third son, Romano. Named after the Duce’s wife, Rachele is the daughter of Romano’s second wife, Carla Maria Puccini, an actress. She is proud of her family connection, and of her father, a jazz pianist and composer who felt uncomfortable among fascist nostalgics.
“Stiff-arm fascist salutes embarrass me, and my father was the same,” Ms Mussolini, who is married with two children, said in an interview last year. But she is not ashamed of her heritage, suggesting that the authorities should commemorate the victims of communist violence as well as those of the Nazis and their fascist allies. “I think we are always and only mourning a certain type of victim, from the top drawer, and we too easily forget the victims of communism, compared to which Hitler was just an apprentice,” she told Il Messaggero last November.
Brothers of Italy takes a tough line on immigration and is in favour of dismantling the eurozone. On immigration Rachele is a moderate within the party. “Society has changed, my daughters have black friends,” she said.
She also condemned her grandfather’s race laws, which codified the persecution of the Jews in Italy. “Write it in capital letters: it was an indelible stain, perhaps the child of that period, but unforgiveable,” she said.
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Brothers of Italy is part of a centre-right alliance headed by Silvio Berlusconi and is expected to perform well at the March 4 election.
Left-wing politicians have protested at the publication of a diary adorned with photos of the dictator and were outraged by the suggestion by Matteo Salvini, leader of the Northern League, that people should not forget the positive achievements of fascism.
Sono tornato (I’m Back), a comic film recounting the return of Benito Mussolini to modern Italy, comes out this week. Luca Miniero, the director, told La Stampa: “It shows us that Mussolini is not an alien and that if he arouses fear it is . . . because he is very similar to us.”