Premier Giorgia Meloni on Friday
denied a claim made in a La Repubblica newspaper interview by
centre-left opposition Democratic Party (PD) leader Elly Schlein
that the self-described government "patriots" were dividing
Italy and abandoning the poorer south, the Mezzogiorno, with
their 'differentiated autonomy' plans and their scrapping of the
RdC citizenship wage basic income anti-poverty benefit.
"I was reading an interview this morning by the leader of the
opposition, great respect because I was in the opposition for so
many years, who said that the patriots are abandoning and
betraying the Mezzogiorno: I think there are two ways to address
the gap, there is the citizenship income and the citizenship
infrastructure, and the Rdc 'was the answer of those who
considered these territories irretrievable," said Meloni at the
signing with Calabria of a key agreement for development and
cohesion.
"To those who accuse me of dividing Italy I would like to say
that Italy was divided by those who believed that there were
first-class and second-class citizens," she said apparently
referring to the past political and cultural hegemony of the
Left.
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