A mass brawl broke out in Italy’s parliament in Rome on Wednesday with rival MPs trying to punch each other on the floor of the lower house.
The scenes came as Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister, welcomed Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak, Emmanuel Macron and other world leaders to a G7 summit in the south of the country.
Left-wing MPs accused their Right-wing opponents of resorting to “squadrismo”, a reference to the violence employed by Mussolini’s Black Shirts during the fascist regime of the 1920s and 1930s.
The brawl erupted during a debate over the Right-wing coalition’s plans to bring in a new law that would give Italy’s 20 regions greater autonomy over how they spend their tax revenues.
It is controversial because critics say it will exacerbate the wealth gap between Italy’s rich northern regions, which have greater tax revenues, and its impoverished, dysfunctional southern regions.
Violence flared after Leonardo Donno, an MP from the centre-Left Five Star Movement, tried to present an Italian red, white and green flag to Roberto Calderoli, the coalition’s minister for regional affairs and autonomy.
The gesture seemed to be a dig at how the autonomy bill could undermine Italian unity. The punch-up was criticised by a minister
When MPs from the governing coalition rushed across to intercept him, a fight broke out, with ushers trying to separate the opposing sides.
Mr Donno accused Igor Iezzi, an MP from the Right-wing League party, which has long championed the rights of northern Italy, of trying to hit him in the face.
Mr Iezzi said he had tried to punch his opponent but had failed to land a blow in the melee, which involved about 20 men.
Mr Donno was knocked to the floor and was escorted out of the lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, in a wheelchair.
He was taken to hospital where he underwent checkups and was discharged with some painkillers.
‘I couldn’t breathe’
“They set about kicking me and I got a punch right in the sternum,” said Mr Donno, 38, who is from Puglia – the southern region where the G7 is being held.
“When I fell to the ground, I wasn’t able to breathe properly, I was sweating heavily. Iezzi [the MP from the League] tried to punch me four or five times but it seems he wasn’t able to hit me.”
He accused three or four other Right-wing MPs, from the League and the prime minister’s Brothers of Italy party, of weighing in against him.
“It was crazy. The sort of thing you expect of ‘squadristi’. It’s unacceptable that this happened in parliament,” he told La Repubblica newspaper.
He said he would file formal legal complaints against all the MPs who allegedly attacked him.
Giuseppe Conte, a former prime minister, and now leader of the Five Star Movement, said: “Violence comes from the benches of the Meloni majority…shameful.”
‘Punches didn’t land’
Mr Iezzi, 49, who is from Milan in northern Italy, conceded that he had tried to strike Mr Donno.
“I tried to hit him a few times, but the punches didn’t land. I was a few metres from him and there were other MPs in the way.”
He accused his opponent of provoking the fight and of exaggerating his injuries. “He fell down and then left the chamber in a wheelchair. Come on!”
The punch-up was criticised by Antonio Tajani, the foreign minister, who is from the centre-Right Forza Italia, a party that was founded by the late Silvio Berlusconi.
“The chamber is not a boxing ring…it’s not fisticuffs that solve political problems,” he said.
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