Letta puts govt in peril with Ius Soli talk says Salvini

(ANSA) - ROME, MAR 15 - League leader Matteo Salvini said Monday that new Democratic Party (PD) leader Enrico Letta was putting Premier Mario Draghi's broadly backed government in danger with talk of granting automatic Italian citizenship to children born in Italy to migrant parents. A Ius Soli law giving citizenship to the children of migrants was among the points raised by ex-premier Letta after he was voted the PD's new leader by a party assembly on Sunday.
    "Only a Martian, only someone who has landed from Paris or Mars, could concern himself with gifting citizenship to immigrants in a country where the schools, the nurseries and the universities are closed, the factories are in trouble and the Italian people have mental health problems," Salvini said.
    Letta had been teaching at the Paris Institute of Political Studies before returning to Italy to stand to lead the PD.
    "If it was a lapse, I say that we are in government to do serious things and the Ius Soli (law) is not a serious thing," Salvini added.
    "I remind the distracted Parisian that Italy is the European country that concedes more citizenship requests than any other.
    "If he talks about Ius Soli it means he wants to bring down this government". (ANSA).