No place for the Fascist salute in Europe - Weber

(ANSA) - ROME, JAN 9 - In Europe there is no place for the Fascist salute, European People's Party (EPP) President Manfred Weber said Tuesdayon the episode in Rome on Sunday involving hundreds of far right militants at a ceremony marking the 46th anniversary of the deaths of three far-right youth militants allegedly by far left militants outside the headquarters of the former headquarters of the neoFascist Italian Social Movement (MSI).
    "In Europe there is no place for the Fascist salute and we condemn it in the strongest terms," said Weber.
    "We fully agree with and welcome the clear position taken by Deputy Premier Antonio Tajani on this issue," he added.
    On Monday Tajani said his centre-right Forza Italia party, a member of the EPP, is "anti-fascist" and that "all demonstrations of support for dictatorships must be condemned".
    "There is a law stating that you cannot make an apology of fascism in our country, it is forbidden by law," he added.
    The salutes, made during a ceremony recalling the Acca Larentia massacre in which two members of the youth wing of MSI, Franco Bigonzetti and Francesco Ciavatta, aged 13 and 17, were shot dead, allegedly by far left militants, outside the party's Rome headquarters in the street named after a Roman goddess.
    A third MSI youth wing member, Stefano Recchioni, 19, was fatally injured by a stray bullet during ensuing clashes by members of the youth wing, the Fronte della Gioventù, who rioted after the deaths, and police.
    Then Fronte della Gioventù leader Gianfranco Fini, later a foreign minister in Forza Italia founder Silvio Berlusconi's second government from 2001 to 2006, was wounded by a gas canister.
    Photo:Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani (L) and Manfred Weber attend a meeting of the EPP in Bruxelles, Belgium, on November 13, 2023. (ANSA).