The little music that will accompany it until the legislative elections of 2023, it is in Genoa that Giorgia Meloni began to sing it. On the occasion of an electoral rally on June 6, on the Old Port. “We didn’t want to enter the government until now: because we are not ready? No: because we want to govern on our terms! Our goal is not to make Italy survive, but to turn it around. Turn it over ‘like a sock’, as they say in Rome”, she exclaims in front of an audience of 500 or 600 people who applaud with both hands. She’s the new Giorgia Meloni: both feet in the street, her head in government.
“This is just the beginning”, blows on the square one of his close collaborators. Giorgia Meloni waited for the last weeks of the campaign to sell, step by step, city after city, a story from which she will not depart until the legislative elections: that of a conservative and moderate right, “extremely rigorous”, “extremely concrete”, less and less populist, steeped in voluntarism and meritocracy (“merit is the fuel of this world”).
His liberalism is a sort of Blairist third way, in a right-wing version (“create the conditions to be tied at the starting line”). An energetic discourse, which goes from the will to the body (“everything is in the will, the determination, the sense of sacrifice, the passion”) to a form of mental coaching (“one must not accept the limits imposed by others”).
A new version of the right, therefore, Berlusconian but without Berlusconi. Meloni, as a politician by profession, intends to speak to entrepreneurs, surveys the North more than the South, speaks of companies bullied by the State, of made in Italy, ranks at the exact opposite of the income of citizenship [aide sociale mise en place par le Mouvement 5 Étoiles]Talk about “revolutionizing normalcy”, of “little things of common sense”, intends to cut labor taxation.
“Giorgia, she inspires me”
A leader who appeals to women on the right. Meloni, they adore her, they find themselves in her: at the foot of the stage, she is the object of true adoration. Nothing about her, of course, feminist: but a total novelty compared to the infantilizing machismo of a Berlusconi (bunga-bunga sauce) or the adolescent machismo of a Salvini. The women ask her for a selfie, a dedication on a book, shake her hand, caress her and even – a gesture that has become subversive – take her in their arms. Housewives, students, business leaders…
In La Spezia, south of Genoa, under the sun, at 11 a.m., mothers with prams listen to him speak ill of the “government of the best” [comme on surnomme parfois l’exécutif d’union nationale de Mario Draghi]. In Genoa, one touches on ecstasy. “Giorgia is navigating a very difficult world for women, she is a political leader, not a business owner. Me, I’m a boss, and that’s why I find it hard to be convinced: but she inspires me”, thus recognizes Fulvia, company director. Behind her come those who – by the dozens – are queuing up to greet Meloni.
The battle for center-right leadership
In flat shoes and with these weapons, Giorgia Meloni is preparing, for the first time, to overtake her opponents. And not just in the polls. These municipal elections are a general rehearsal before the legislative elections, where the battle for the leadership and the future of the center-right will be played out. They are a first life-size test of the reliability of the polls which, in recent months, had seen Fratelli d’Italia take off, to the point of seeing him occupy the first place in the Italian political landscape. It remains to be seen whether Meloni will convert the test [Fratelli d’Italia a été le premier parti de la droite sur ces élections, mais le deuxième en Italie derrière le Parti démocrate, centre gauche].
Anyway, the scent of “overtaking” [doubler en voiture] is everywhere in the schedule of the two leaders of the center-right in these last days of campaign. In that of Matteo Salvini, which is filling up visibly, full of appointments to catch up, and in that of Giorgia Meloni, ever more concise, riding its momentum. Ten meetings a day for him, two for her: guess who is behind who in the opinion polls.
“We never accepted the limits imposed by others”
In her meetings across Italy, Giorgia Meloni paints a precise picture which helps to define her orientations for the months to come. She asserts that the centre-right “normal” is a united centre-right, that the anomaly is this government of national unity [auquel participent Berlusconi et Salvini] and this choice to partner with the executive with “a left that is not really presentable”.
An alliance that has its hands tied, according to Meloni: “I want to govern with the centre-right”, point. Preferably in a dominant position. And in the municipalities where the center-right presents itself in dispersed order, as in Parma, she explains: “We are not a party that is content with little, that agrees to scrape by, we are a party that wants to make a difference, that has never accepted the limits imposed by others.”
And indeed, already five years ago – and so much the worse for modesty – Meloni already said that he aspired to the post of Prime Minister. The difference is that at the time no one took her seriously. Like the journalist Giovanni Minoli, lapidary as usual, who asked him: “You, at best, will become a minister if the centre-right wins: which ministry would you like?” She dared to answer: “No, I refute your analysis: I intend to become President of the Council.”
It was December 2017, she had just been re-elected president of Fratelli d’Italia, which was hovering around 5%. It wasn’t then “the first opposition party”, as the current President of the Council, Mario Draghi, describes it today. She hadn’t adopted the look yet “Eva Perron”, or rather the cinegenic version of Madonna, the hair pulled back and the XXL earrings. She was not then “selfie black belt”like today.
She was more smiling, more giggling, less sure of herself. “Get in single file and activate the ‘selfie’ function on your mobile phones, then give them to me, I’ll take care of the photo, it will go faster”, she orders at the end of a meeting to those who line up in front of the stage for a little photo with her. A rite that has become essential in contemporary politics.
“We are in a democracy, you decide who does what! ”
“Well, ok, it’s hot, so for now stay in the shade, but when Giorgia arrives, I ask you to come closer to the stage because otherwise the photos will look bad”, kindly asks a local party coordinator.
The small crowd gathered in front of the Civic Theater of La Spezia complies: citizen spectators who are now used to it, as one is on a film set. People who, in the end, will be challenged by Giorgia Meloni: “Because we are in a democracy, you decide who does what!” she said cursing the Draghi government.
If she ever wants to replace him, He will have to take one vote more than Salvini and Berlusconi, to become the one whose centre-right will support the candidacy for the presidency of the Council.
It is precisely for this reason that, from now on, unable to attack its own allies, it attacks those of Berlusconi and Salvini. “During the pandemic, the left was at Health. When the Morandi bridge collapsed in Genoa, the 5 Star Movement was in Infrastructure. There is war and the 5 Stars are in Foreign Affairs. And we are told that Fratelli d’Italia does not have the makings of power? Meloni asks, posing a rhetorical and deceptively innocent question here. Just before proclaiming loud and clear: “I guarantee you that these ministers, with us in government, you will not see them again.” And, who knows? In view of her declared graphomania and her stated refusal to allow herself to be set limits, she could well already have her list in her pocket.