Italy needs more migrants, but has trouble admitting it

Francesco Lollobrigida, Italy’s agriculture minister, is seen as one of the most radical ministers in the hard-right government headed by his sister-in-law, Giorgia Meloni. In April opposition politicians accused him of propagating white supremacism after a speech in which he seemed to endorse a conspiracy theory that claims global capitalists are conniving to replace Europeans with poor immigrants so as to suppress wages. Yet three months later Mr Lollobrigida said something few if any of his more liberal cabinet predecessors have dared to say publicly. “We need immigration,” he told a youth convention.