The Brothers of Italy take the fight to Florence
The city is an opposition stronghold
It is barely ten o’clock on a Saturday morning, yet Eike Schmidt has drawn nearly a hundred attentive listeners to a pizzeria in Le Cascine, a large park on the edge of Florence. But then the German-born Mr Schmidt is the most unusual mayoral candidate in the local elections in Italy that coincide with its European Parliament election on June 8th and 9th. Pink-faced and tall but paunchy, he is every inch a son of his native Freiburg. His Italian, though grammatically impeccable, is slightly accented and occasionally hesitant.
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This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “From Uffizi to office?”
Europe June 1st 2024
- The rise of the hard right threatens Europe’s political stability
- Hard-right populists are pushing their way into the mainstream
- The Brothers of Italy take the fight to Florence
- Georgia’s government cosies up to Russia
- Ukraine’s desperate draft-dodgers drown in the river of death
- Ceci n’est pas un divorce: why surging separatism won’t break Belgium
From the June 1st 2024 edition
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Marine Le Pen spooks the bond markets
She threatens to bring down the French government, but also faces a possible ban from politics
The maths of Europe’s military black hole
It needs to spend to defend, but voters may balk
Ukraine’s warriors brace for a Kremlin surge in the south
Vladimir Putin’s war machine is pushing harder and crushing Ukrainian morale
Vladimir Putin fires a new missile to amplify his nuclear threats
The attack on Ukraine is part of a new era of missile warfare
A rise in antisemitism puts Europe’s liberal values to the test
The return of Europe’s oldest scourge
Once dominant, Germany is now desperate
As an election looms its business model is breaking down