2023-09-22 19:45:11
Italy mourns the death of former President Giorgio Napolitano, emblematic leader of the Communist Party and fervent promoter of European construction.
Former Italian President Giorgio Napolitano (2006-2015), historic leader of the Communist Party and promoter of European construction, is died this Friday at the age of 98. The entire political class of the peninsula paid tribute to this Neapolitan born under Mussolini on June 29, 1925 and who as head of state of numerous governments in an Italy with chronically unstable executives.
Considered for years as the guarantor of Italy’s stability, Giorgio Napolitano was elected in 2006. He planned to retire at the end of his first seven-year term in spring 2013, following the legislative elections. But the results of the elections, which were too close, and the inability of the main parties to agree on a possible successor, had forced him to return to service.
Caution and moderation
From the resignation of Romano Prodi in 2008 following only two years in government to the arrival of Matteo Renzi in February 2014, including the resignations of Silvio Berlusconi, Mario Monti and Enrico Letta, Giorgio Napolitano managed a particularly turbulent phase in Italy.
Giorgio Napolitano led “important battles for social development, peace and progress in Italy and Europe.”
Recognized for his moderation, his prudence and his sense of the State, he had been integrated into the Fascist university groups like most of the students under Mussolini, but had at the same time engaged, from the age of 17, in a group of communist resistancebefore joining the party in 1945 and being elected to Parliament for the first time in 1953.
Perceived as a reformist, he nevertheless approved the suppression of the Budapest uprising crushed on November 4, 1956 by Soviet tanks. Giorgio Napolitano went to Budapest in 2006 to pay his respects at the grave of the leader of the insurrection, Imre Nagy.
©AFP
Tributes
The current President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella recalled the European commitment of the former member of the Parliament of Strasbourg who led “important battles for social development, peace and progress in Italy and in Europe”.
In a telegram to his widow, Pope Francison a trip to Marseille, for his part saluted a man who had devoted his political action to preserving the “unity and harmony” of his country.
©AFP
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