ROME, Italy (AFP) — Around three thousand far-right protesters from all over Italy gathered in Rome Saturday to call for the "remigration" of migrants back to their home countries, as a retired general launched a new far-right party.
"Immigrants may stay if they are willing to accept our rules of coexistence," one demonstrator, Susanna Rubei, told Agence France-Presse. "Otherwise, they must return to their home countries.
"This applies particularly to those who commit crimes and are caught red-handed once, twice, three or four times," she added.
Luca Marsella, spokesperson for the neofascist group Casapound, said: "We want to kick the illegal immigrants out — force them out, because they shouldn't be here."
"And since we're not politically correct, we'll say we want to send the legal immigrants home too — the ones who clearly haven't assimilated or integrated," he added.
A few meters away, the European Parliament member and former general Roberto Vannacci held a meeting to formally launch his new far-right party Futuro Nazionale (FN, National Future).
"So far as I am concerned, nobody should be allowed to enter Italy," he told reporters at a news conference.
Vannacci is a former member of Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini's anti-immigrant League party.
Nearly a year ahead of the 2027 legislative elections, he is positioning his new party to challenge Italy's hard-right government on its own turf, complicating Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's hopes of re-election.
Vannacci highlights Italy's Roman-Christian roots, while disparaging migrants, feminists and LGBTQ+ people.
Recent opinion polls put the new party at around 4.5 percent support, most of it taken from Salvini's League.
Last weekend it said it had doubled the number of members of parliament it had to eight, after four switched alliances.