ROME — Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni spent years pushing Italy’s post-fascist right toward the political mainstream. Now a former army general is pulling it back.

The newly launched National Future party, led by firebrand ex-paratrooper General Roberto Vannacci, is rapidly gathering support and attracting defectors from the governing coalition.

This is causing a splitting political headache for Meloni, as she heads toward a general election next year looking unusually vulnerable.

The first effect of Vannacci’s rise is that he is crushing one of Meloni’s key coalition allies: the anti-immigration League party of Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini. A poll on Monday showed that National Future had already reached parity with the League.

Vannacci’s ascent is also increasingly forcing Meloni to fight on his terrain, on topics such as migration, national identity, Russia and NATO spending, shifting the coalition’s center of gravity further to the right.

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https://www.politico.eu/article/far-right-general-upends-italian-politics/