Salvini, Matteo

Salvini, Matteo,

1973–, Italian politician, b. Milan. A member of the right-wing League (formerly the Northern League) since 1990, he became leader of the party in 2013, when Umberto Bossi resigned. Salvini has worked to extend the party's influence from N Italy—the Northern League had advocated for the region's independence—to central and S Italy. He served as a Milan city councilor (1993–2012), in Italy's Chamber of Deputies (2008–9), and in the European Parliament (EP) (2004–6, 2009–18). In 2015 he helped form an EP far-right political grouping that included Marine Le PenLe Pen, Jean-Marie
, 1928–, French politician. He graduated from law school, was elected (1956) a parliamentary deputy, and criticized President de Gaulle's Algerian policy. From 1972 to 2011 he led the extreme right-wing National Front (FN).
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's National Front and Geert WildersWilders, Geert,
1963–, Dutch politician. known for his far-right and anti-immigration views. A member of People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) from 1989, he was elected to the municipal council of Utrecht (1997) and then to the Dutch parliament (1998).
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' Freedom party. After the Mar., 2018, parliamentary elections, the League, which had campaigned on an anti-immigration Euroskeptic platform and placed third, formed a coalition government with the antiestablishment Five Star Movement, which won a plurality. Giuseppe ConteConte, Giuseppe,
1964–, Italian political leader, grad. Sapienza Univ. of Rome law school, 1988. A law professor at the Univ. of Florence and a political independent, he was a political novice who was not widely known when he was named prime minister in June, 2018, by the
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, a law professor who belonged to neither party, became premier; Salvini, who was elected to the senate and was regarded by most observers to be the most influential politician in Italy, became deputy prime minister and interior minister. He subsequently abandoned his former anti-euro position as he moved the League more toward the political center.