(AFP) Italian minister Francesco Lollobrigida, one of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s closest allies, sparked outrage Tuesday by warning against the “ethnic replacement” of Italians by migrants.
“We cannot resign ourselves to the idea of ethnic replacement: Italians have fewer children, so let’s substitute them with someone else. That’s not the road to go down,” Lollobrigida said during a congress in Rome.
Meloni’s Brothers of Italy won elections last year on a pledge to boost the flagging birth rate and curb sea arrivals in Italy, which has long been a key destination for boats crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa.
